


Continued Parallels

by peldarjoi



Series: Terrorists Don't Get to Be Heroes [7]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Bajorans, Canon-Typical Violence, Cardassians, F/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Parallel Universes, Starfleet, TNG Episode Reference: Parallels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-03-28 16:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 41,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13908195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peldarjoi/pseuds/peldarjoi
Summary: This story is a continuation of sorts from “Part 1: The Occupation” from “Terrorists Don’t Get to be Heroes” series, based on the TNG episode “Parallels”, the universe referenced below."Following their overthrow of the Cardassian Union, [Bajorans]… became more aggressive, even going as far as attacking Starfleet. In 2370, a Bajoran ship destroyed the Federation's Argus Array, believing that it was being used to spy on them. A day later, the ship attacked the USS Enterprise-D, causing damage to its power systems." - Memory Alpha - WikiaFor character backgrounds, I recommend reading “Part 1” and “Other Lives” also from this series. The one thing that changes is that our main character never encountered the Starfleet Intelligence operatives in chapter 7 of “Part 1”.





	1. Chapter 1

“The Klingon ship will be in weapons range in thirty seconds.” Kee reported urgently, keeping her focus on the readout in front of her. Down in the engine room, Joial was pushing the Krehu’s engines past the safety limits, but it wouldn’t be enough, the Klingons were much faster without even taxing their engines.

“How soon until we reach the Badlands?” Ren asked Gam at the helm.

“Not soon enough.” He called back.

“Aft shields are down to thirty-two percent. I don’t recommend we take a hit back there.” Veeso said from the operations console.

“Come about, we’ll have to fight.” Ren ordered.

As Gam reduced speed to maneuver, Kee rerouted power back from the engines to the weapons systems and shields and began powering up. These pre-occupation ships weren’t equipped with photons, only phasers, and low-powered ones at that compared to the Klingons’ arsenal. Kee breathed through the fear and prepared to face the enemy once more.

“Phasers ready.” She said just as the fast approaching Klingon ship moved into her forward targeting screen.

“Fire at your discretion, Kee.” Ren said. He trusted his people to do what needed to be done, they’d been together for a long time, after all. Kee would be the one targeting and firing, but everyone from Gam to Joial to the techs making constant adjustments and repairs throughout the ship all worked together as one.

The Klingon ship loomed larger on the viewscreen. The forward sweep of its wings gave the impression of a predatory bird descending upon its prey. One could almost imagine a pair of talons reaching for them. But instead of talons, disruptor beams lashed out from the tips of its wings.

The Krehu shook but held its position. Kee didn’t waste phaser power trying to overwhelm their shields, there was a vulnerability she intended to exploit. “Gam, get us under the belly of that ship.”

More weapons fire from the bird of prey strafed across their back even as the Klingons turned to protect their weak spot.

“Aft shields are down, forward shields are at fifty-three percent.” Veeso reported.

“Joial, we need those shields back.” Ren said into the comm.

 _“Not gonna happen any time soon, the whole system is fried.”_ Joial’s voice sounded muffled like he had his head inside the access hatch.

Gam maneuvered the ship to keep their rear out of the Klingons’ range, but the weakened forward shields continued to take a pounding.

Despite Gam’s erratic flightpath, Kee managed to land a direct hit on the underside of the bird of prey. But it had little effect. “I’m not getting through their shields, Joial, can you give me any more power on the phasers?” Kee asked.

 _“Let me see.”_ He said with a grunt as he pulled himself out of whatever part of the ship he’d been in.

She stopped firing for a moment while Gam took the ship on a series of wild evasive maneuvers that the inertial dampers barely managed to keep up with. For a terrifying moment where her heart nearly seized, the phasers winked offline, but before she had a chance to report it, they loaded back up.

 _“See if that gives you what you need.”_ Joial said.

She made a mental note to ask him to kindly warn her next time and targeted the Klingon ship again in the same spot even as her heart rate still hadn’t returned to an elevated normal.

The Klingon ship veered off to protect its weak spot, but Gam pursued. _Stay with them._ She silently ordered, knowing he would. The moment she had the smallest opening, she fired and landed a shot right where she wanted. The sensors registered the power output of the phasers at nearly double their maximum limit.

“Their shields are down.” Veeso said.

“One more shot.” Kee said almost to herself, hoping she would _have_ one more shot before they burned out the emitters.

The bridge was silent as Gam fought for position, allowing the Klingons to land two more phaser hits in favor of giving Kee the shot she needed.

“Forward shields are down.” Veeso said.

The attack had cost the Klingon ship some of their maneuvering ability and Gam swung the Krehu under their belly. Kee targeted the sweet spot and fired, praying that the phasers would hold out. A yellow energy beam drilled into the hull of the Klingon ship for a split second and died out with the sound of a dull explosion somewhere inside the Krehu.

“Their engines and weapons are down!” Veeso called out.

“Get us out of here.” Ren ordered, but Gam was already accelerating toward the Badlands again.

Kee let out a quiet sigh, careful not to let the others hear it, as they left the Klingon ship behind.

“Gam, find us a nice out of the way place to hide in the Badlands while we make repairs.” Ren ordered.

‘Nice’ was not a typical word used for the Badlands. And the best spots to hide usually had the most active plasma storms. Gam and their other helmsmen, Fenja and Izu would have to constantly monitor their surroundings. Without shields, even a glancing blow from a plasma storm could take them out.

“Kee,” Ren said, standing from his captain’s chair, “Let’s take a look at our prize.”

She stood from her post as the orange-yellow-red swirling gasses of the Badlands overtook the viewscreen and she followed him off of the bridge.

The cloaking device they’d stolen from the Klingons, and nearly paid for with their lives, would be the key to making the Cardassians pay for what they did to the Bajorans. Since the Withdrawal six months ago, it had been all they could manage to keep the Cardassians from encroaching into their territory again. Most every encounter with a Gallor-class ship ended with the crew either dead or stranded in space. Ships and crews that Bajor could not afford to lose.

Provoking the Klingons was possibly the worst idea they’d come up with, but they had to do something drastic or the Cardassians would re-occupy their world within months, and this time, there was no doubt they’d be exterminated. But the cloaking device would give them a massive advantage to not only hold off the Cardassians but to finally take the battle to them.

A smile crept onto the corners of her lips at the thought of appearing out of nowhere at an undefended Cardassian target and opening fire. Everything the Cardassians had gained off of the backs of the Bajoran people, they would take back or destroy.

The walk to engineering was short and silent. She followed Ren in to be greeted by acrid smoke stinging her eyes and nose. With the engineers busy at their tasks repairing battle damage, the two found their way to the brown, strangely-shaped piece of equipment with Klingon lettering on it.

“A lot of trouble for such a small device.” Ren mused.

“The trouble’s not over, either.” Joial said, walking into the room. “It’s going to be at least a day until we have the shields back online, we’re having to machine new parts and rebuild almost from scratch.”

“What about the phasers?” Ren asked.

Joial ran his hand through his hair, leaving a greasy smudge on his forehead in the process. “Phasers are a lost cause.”

“And the cloak?”

He looked down at it as though it was a disobedient child. “I don’t know how long it’ll take to get it operational. It’s not designed to work with our technology even under the best conditions.”

“A guess?”

“If everything goes perfectly… maybe a few hours. Or a couple of days, I really don’t know until we get into it. And that’s not taking into account documentation of the construction of the device.”

“Skip the documentation, have the computer take detailed scans while you’re working on the shields and we’ll send them home next time we’re in range, then do what you have to do to get it functioning.”

“Automated scans won’t be enough for the techs back home to reverse engineer it-”

“It’ll have to be, we need to get back out there. Pull other crew in from other departments if you need to.”

Joial nodded, “I could use Alerra to design the interface.”

“She’s yours. And anybody else you need.” He turned to Kee. “Find a way to get our hands on a new pair of phaser banks, and I want you to bring me three target options with a plan of attack by the time we’re ready to leave.”

She nodded her agreement and he left to return to the bridge.

“You’ve been complaining about wanting new phasers.” Joial said to her with a shrug.

This wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind for how to get them. And then there was the matter of asking him to warn her next time before he reset her tactical systems.

* * *

Kee sat in her tiny office at a desk that had belonged to someone else long ago, before her people knew the horrors of the Occupation. Other than a modern computer console they’d salvaged from the wreckage of a Cardassian ship, the only item on the desk was an old sandglass left behind when the ship had been decommissioned when the Cardassians dismantled the Bajoran military.

She turned over the sandglass and watched the sand pile up again. There were three ways to get their hands on a set of phaser banks: salvage, purchase or theft. While there were lots of wrecked ships floating around in the badlands, coming across one that had _any_ systems intact was a long shot. Pass.

They might be able to contact one of several weapons dealers they had worked with in the past, but ship-mounted weapons were way out of their price range. They had absolutely nothing onboard to trade, they barely even had enough deuterium to keep the ship running on minimal power. Pass, again.

That left them to steal them. But without any functional weapons in the first place, how could they pull that off? She tapped her fingers against the glass knickknack to knock the last of the sand down to the bottom.

“What about a Federation surplus yard?” She said out loud to herself, already inputting commands to call up a starchart.

* * *

“That’s a long way to travel with no weapons and a bird of prey looking for us.” Ren said cautiously from the other side of his desk.

“The Klingons don’t have a way to detect their own cloaked ships and the Federation isn’t looking for a cloaked ship in their space.”

“That’s assuming the cloak doesn’t malfunction between here and there.”

“I don’t think there’s any other way to get our replacement phasers.” She said, still standing across from him. “Plus, _Starfleet_ phasers are far more powerful than anything we’ve ever had! It would give us a much wider range of targets that we could attack.”

“Can this ship handle the power needs?”

“Joial thinks he can rig something up.” Not to mention, they’d definitely need more deuterium to boost their power output, but that was another problem.

“Which means testing.” He set the padd down on his desk.

She sighed, she understood how anxious he was to get back out there and hammer the enemy, she felt the same way. The overwhelming urge to avenge her people, but they didn’t have any other option.

“You think this is the only way?” He asked, seeming to read her mind.

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I had anything else.”

“Alright, work with Gam on a flight plan that takes us away from primary traffic areas in case we have a problem with the cloak.”

She grabbed the padd off of his desk… it was the only one she had without a cracked screen… and left his office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My theory is that Jaro Essa and his followers in the Circle took control of the provisional government immediately after the Cardassians withdrew and the Federation was never invited to assume control the station. Though, I don't have plans at this time to include Jaro or the Circle specifically in this story.


	2. Chapter 2

Jeff Riggs leaned against a wall in an alley way on Farius Prime. He hated waiting around in the open like this, but the summons from his commanding officer at Starfleet Intelligence had been marked urgent.

A shadow from the main street made him stiffen and he lightly touched the phaser under his jacket, but he relaxed when he saw that it was Commander Pascal (undoubtedly not his real name).

He began without any greetings, “I’m sorry to have to do this, but we’re pulling you off of this assignment.”

“My partner is deep under cover, if we pull her out now, we may never get back in.” He and Mal had finally made progress getting her into Kodun’s organization and she was currently gathering evidence regarding his dealings with the Orion Syndicate.

“She stays in place, we’re just reassigning you.”

Jeff gaped for a moment, “We can’t leave her here without backup.”

“The decision has been made.” He said firmly enough to stop any argument. “You’re aware by now of the Bajoran issue? Following their overthrow of the Cardassian Union, they’ve became more and more aggressive towards the Cardassians and their government is led by a highly anti-Federation group.”

“They’ve never been considered a real threat.”

“Until now. We have a report that they’ve stolen a cloaking device from the Klingons.”

“The Klingons!?” He’d heard they were reckless, but he didn’t think reckless enough to pick a fight with the Klingons.

“It sounds unlikely, which is why you’re going to find out for sure whether they do have the cloak and if so, what they intend to do with it.” He handed him an isoliniar chip, “This is what we have. It’s not much more than a ship name.”

“I’ve had less to go on.” He said with confidence he didn’t have.

As Pascal disappeared back into the street, Jeff could only hope Mal would be safe until he was done with this assignment.


	3. Chapter 3

“Just don’t look at the stars.” Joial told Kee. Tough as she was, zero-g was apparently not her strength. Her cheeks looked pale, though he thought they were all handling their first spacewalk pretty well.

The Krehu had made it to Federation Surplus Depot Z15 under a very precarious cloaking field. It had malfunctioned several times, but their rout had been remote enough that they didn’t have any unwanted visitors while they were visible. After decloaking at the edge of the shipyard, beaming the team in EV suits to the hull of a decommissioned Starfleet ship, they recloaked and waited. It didn’t matter that their ship was keeping a protective watch over them, with nothing but stars all around them, it felt like they were completely alone out here.

_“That’s very nice advice, except that the stars are where trouble will come from.”_

“Don’t worry, we’re getting close.” He said as he worked to detach the type-8 phaser banks without damaging the control systems attached to them.

_“Who’s worried?”_ She said with a noticeable waver to her voice.

“My mistake, I must be thinking of Jayur.” His assistant glanced up at the sound of his name just as he removed the last coupling and the phaser bank floated free.

Jayur continued to the starboard side of the ship with Joial to work on the second one. _“Watch that for us, will you?”_ He called back to her.

_“Don’t worry, I’m not letting this baby out of my sight!”_ She said, grabbing hold of the equipment.

They knelt down on opposite sides and began following the same procedure with slow movements, cumbersome in the EV suits.

One of the newer crewmembers who had not been with them during the Resistance days had once asked him if it was uncomfortable for his niece to also be his commanding officer, or the other way around. He hadn’t had an answer. Up until then, he’d barely given any thought to the discrepancy. As her father’s brother, he was proud of her beyond anything he could put into words. As her fellow freedom fighter, he had a love for her that was beyond family. And as her subordinate, he would follow her right into the lair of the Pah-wraiths.

They were almost half way through the removal when Kee said with a tight voice, _“You guys close to being done?”_

“Why? Getting space sick?” He teased.

_“No. I’ve got a perimeter alert. There’s a ship coming.”_ She said, all business now.

He focused on speeding up the process without risking damage.

_“It’s a Federation ship. They’re moving slowly through the salvage yard. I don’t think they’ve spotted us.”_ She added.

_“We can’t risk the Krehu decloaking for us to get on board.”_ Jayur said.

_“If that ship gets much closer, they’ll see us out here.”_ Kee warned. _“I have a crazy idea that will probably get us killed.”_

For the second time, the phaser bank floated loose. “Oh, are we supposed to be surprised by that?” He turned to see that she had hooked her tether to the first phaser bank and he did so too, beginning to have a sinking feeling what she had in mind.

She looked ‘up’ relative to their position. Although they were on the underside of the ship even though there was technically no up or down in space. _“Unless they moved from their last position, the Krehu should be right there.”_ She pointed above their heads.

_“Oh no.”_ Jayur suddenly caught on. _“How do we get past the cloaking field without being crushed or electrocuted?.”_

_“We know our shield frequency. I’m betting the two of you can somehow use that information to get us through.”_

Joial pulled a tricorder out of his EV suit. Since the cloak used the shield generators, the frequency was the same whether they were using shields or the cloak. “We may be able to create a subspace bubble to match the frequency.”

_“To do that, we’ll have to tie in the multineural converter assembly.”_ Jayur added.

_“How long will that take?”_ She asked, glancing at the approaching dot that had grown to something almost recognizable as a ship.

“Two minutes?”

_“It should take us at least three to cover the distance to the Krehu.”_ She said and immediately disengaged her mag boots and pushed off into what looked like open space.

He and Jayur did likewise, already working at their modifications. The Krehu had to have seen the other ship, and they had to have picked up on their plan. Once they were within the cloaking field, they could use maneuvering thrusters to ‘catch’ the salvage team.

“We should be approaching the perimeter. I’m activating the subspace bubble now.”

_"Keep your hands and feet inside the subspace bubble until the ride has come to a complete stop.”_ Jayur joked nervously.

All they could do was wait, drifting in space, moments away from being either electrocuted by their own ship’s cloaking field or pass through it. He wasn’t even sure if there would be any visual indication of their passage.

He had his answer soon enough. Without a distortion or burst of light, the Krehu simply appeared directly in front of them. He could see tiny bursts from the thrusters as they lined up the cargo bay with their trajectory.

“Hang onto the equipment. Don’t let it get damaged.” He told Kee and she wrapped her arms around it like a child with a long-awaited gift.

Their speed that seemed so slow in the vastness of space now felt terrifyingly fast this close to the ship as they careened forward with nothing to slow them. Kee was the first to pass into the cargo bay, tumbling through as though she’d fallen sideways through a hole. She hit the deck and rolled, protecting her prize. Then she quickly scrambled away for the others.

He wasn’t sure if seeing her go first was a good thing or a bad thing, but he didn’t have much time to ponder it before he ‘fell’ into the cargo bay, hitting his shoulder first on the deck before rolling to a stop.

By the time he stood up, Kee already had her helmet off and was watching intently out the cargo bay door. When he joined her, he saw the Federation ship continue to meander lazily through the salvage.


	4. Chapter 4

_“yI'el!”_

The harshly feminine voice from the other side of the door invited Jeff to enter. ‘Invite’ was a nice word for it. Not surprisingly, the Klingons didn’t like anyone coming around asking questions about stolen cloaking devices.

He stepped forward to trigger the door and it slid open with a grinding metallic noise.

“What do you want?” The universal translator finally kicked in, not that he needed it, he understood Klingon well enough.

The female seated on the other side of the desk, L’taja, didn’t invite him to sit, so he remained standing. “I’m looking for information about a missing cloaking device.” Though, he was sure she already knew the reason for his appointment.

She stood and leaned across her desk over stacks of padds. “You mean to dishonor the empire by suggesting Klingon warriors allowed their cloaking device to be taken from them?!” She was not the first to have made that accusation. He’d been through three other Klingon bureaucrats, all fancying themselves as some kind of paper-pushing warriors, trying to track down the ship that had lost its cloak. A Klingon crew were unlikely to just let go of such an offence, there was a good chance if he could track them down, they’d lead him to the Bajorans.

He leaned in from the other side of the desk and made sure to look her in the eye. “Of course not, only that there may be a ship out there with a _missing_ cloak.”  
His show of nerve seemed to gratify her somewhat. “You should check with the Administrator of Machinery.”

“I already did, he sent me to you, the Administrator of Requisitions.” He was done being passed around from department to department, so he laid on the charm, Klingon style. He shoved a stack of padds out of his way and pressed his palms against the desk until he was only centimeters from her face. “nuq nej jIH HInob SoH.”

Her eyes drilled into his as he held his ground. Finally, a low rumble sounded from deep in her throat and she grabbed him by his shirt, pulled him across her desk and shoved him against the wall. He wasn’t even sure if she was angry or aroused until she mashed her lips against his.

What had started out as a ploy to get what he came for, he couldn’t deny his own arousal at this powerful woman who had him pinned to the wall. He found himself reaching up to dig his fingers into her mass of hair.

The leather of her uniform creaked as she pressed her bosom against him. Her earthy scent filled his nostrils, sending his heart pounding.

It was only when sharp pain from her teeth puncturing his lip pulled him out of it that he pulled back from her kiss. “I have a job that I must complete.” He told her simply, hoping she’d accept it as a matter of duty rather than a rejection.

She licked his blood off of her lip with a lustful sneer, “I may be able to give you the name of a ship that recently requested a replacement cloak.”

“Your help would be invaluable.”

“Under one condition.” She leaned close to his ear and he braced himself for another bite. “You _consider_ returning to complete our _discussion_.”

The smile that crept onto his lips was a genuine one and he found himself nodding an agreement.


	5. Chapter 5

Kee watched the blip on her console that passive sensors identified as a Cardassian freighter that plodded along at low warp. Active sensors would have told her what they already knew, the freighter carried a shipment of deuterium for Omekla. The freighter’s origin, the deuterium refinement facility at Avenel, told them what they couldn’t yet confirm with active sensors without risking detection through the cloak.

She had been anxious to try out their new weapons system. The phasers were so powerful, during the first test, they blew out almost the entire primary power system. Which meant replicating new parts, which meant further depletion of their rapidly dwindling deuterium supply. Hence their choice of target.

The second phaser test pulled so much power from the grid that it shut down the warp core and they ended up drifting in space for a few hours. Joial had ended up throttling the emitters to just over half their designed output, but they were still far more powerful than anything they’d had their hands on before. And certainly enough to make short work of this unescorted freighter.

Naren moved around behind her, occasionally bumping into her chair. Until today, she actually hadn’t seen him even once in the last couple of weeks. He’d been holed up in the armory messing around with their hand phasers, then later in engineering working on the ship’s phasers.

While it had been made clear that she was the second in command, she tended to give them all a pretty wide berth. They knew their duties, their goals were aligned, so throwing her authority around would accomplish nothing. Not to mention that the authority itself felt strange. In battle, she had no problem barking out orders, sending people here or there, but outside of battle, it seemed strange to tell her friends what to do. Especially those who had been there when she joined the Resistance as a pre-teen girl.

“The freighter is in range.” Veeso said. “Ready to decloak.”

Kee peeked at the new display to her right. Every console on the bridge and several in engineering had been set up with the ability to control the cloak, but baring some kind of emergency, the operations console had been designated the one to work the cloak.

She programmed a firing pattern that would take out the shields and propulsion without risking the cargo but allowed the target lock to float until the order was given.

“Now.” Ren said, leaning forward in his chair.

“Decloaking.” Veeso said. In Kee’s peripheral vision, the display changed to indicate they had decloaked.

“Moving to intercept.” Gam said as he moved the ship into the path of the freighter.

“Initiating firing sequence.” She said as she did so. The system locked on its target and opened fire following the programmed pattern without her having to do more. She almost missed the guerilla tactics back in the days when all they had were phaser rifles and a pack full of grenades. Where they personally pulled the trigger or threw the explosive each time. This was too… easy.

The system fired rapidly, landing low-powered phaser blasts exactly on her predetermined locations on the freighter as they passed over and around.

“The freighter’s shields and engines are down.”

“Alerra.” Ren said into the comm.

 _“Energizing now.”_ She said without waiting for him to finish the command. They’d crammed the small crew of 21 into only five crew quarters to make space to take on as much deuterium as they could hold in addition to what the cargo bay would hold and every possible available space in engineering.

While Alerra worked to pilfer the shipment, Kee prepared for the second part of their assault, locking phasers onto the freighter’s warp core with the full power this ship could produce. Her finger hovered over the initiation key, but she watched the damaged and listing freighter on the forward screen, wanting to see the destruction for herself.

 _“Transport complete.”_ Alerra reported.

“Fire.” Ren ordered.

She tapped the key and watched as a pair of phaser beams slammed into the freighter’s rear hull. A split second later, explosions ripped through the ship from back to front. Through the unsettling silence of space, she could only imagine a wave of fire pouring through the corridors. Finally, when the freighter had lost enough structural integrity, it exploded as they watched.

In the stunned silence, she felt like cheering, but it didn’t seem right either. Yes, they had completed the mission. They’d taken enough deuterium to supply themselves and the rest of the Bajoran fleet for months and easily destroyed a supposedly superior vessel. But they’d also raised the stakes.

* * *

“…he practically dove away from the power conduit when Kee fired that last blast with the phasers.” Joial said to the group in the crowded mess hall, answered by an uproar of laughter.

Ren watched his people from the edges of the group. After a successful raid and enough fuel to use the replicators again, dinner had turned into a party including all but the few crewmembers manning the bridge.

“Do you see that I still have only half an eyebrow?” Jayur said defensively, pointing to his _half-brow_ as people had been calling it. “When we were testing the phasers, he said,” pointing to Joial, “‘watch out, there might be a slight back-flow.’ Then the conduit blew up in my face!”

Another round of deafening laughter in the small space.

“I never said ‘slight.’” Joial argued.

“That’s absolutely true,” Naren said, “it was only implied.”

Kee leaned across the table toward Jayur, “From now on, just assume that ‘slight backflow’ always means ‘explosion in your face’ and you’ll be fine.”

It was good to see them enjoying themselves, laughing and teasing each other. The last few weeks had been grueling, no, their entire lives had been grueling. They deserved a break. An easy victory for once. But it would be their only and last ‘easy’ victory. It wouldn’t take the Cardassians long to figure out what happened back there, as soon as they did, they would immediately start escorting their freighters and fortifying their military facilities. And the rest of the militia would have to be warned to prepare for retaliatory strikes. Not to mention the Klingon ship that was still out there looking for them.

For now, they would rendezvous with another Bajoran ship at Olmerak II to offload most of the deuterium they’d taken from the freighter. After that, they’d continue attacking the Cardassians’ supply shipments, weakening their forces along the border and hopefully forcing them to pull back away from Bajoran space. Kee had worked up a list of targets, complete with priority levels and current tactical difficulty, plus an assumed increase.

The cloak would give them a major advantage, but only a tentative one. The Federation had some ability to detect cloaked ships. A technique that they would likely be willing to share happily with the Cardassians in accordance with their peace treaty. A peace treaty that was signed while Bajorans were still being slaughtered in labor camps and their world was being stripped bare. While Bajorans were routinely murdered for trying to protect their homes.

Another burst of raucous laughter pulled him out of the gloom that had settled over him. He’d missed whatever they were laughing about, but Kee turned to catch his eye with a beautifully genuine smile that shone in her eyes. He smiled back, wishing, hoping, they knew how much he cared for them. _His_ people.

With the smile still on his lips, he stood to slip out the door. He’d only made it a few steps down the corridor when he heard someone coming up behind him.

“Hey.” Kee said as she fell into step beside him.

Alone in the corridor, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned in close. “You’ve done really well.” He told her, knowing the words didn’t do her justice.

“It wasn’t just me.” She said, deflecting as always.

“I mean it. I couldn’t do this without you.”

She looked up at him and in that moment, he remembered all the years they’d spent fighting side by side. “Likewise.” She said simply.

“I want everybody to get some rest. As soon as we rendezvous with the Amalia, we’ll be headed right back out.”

“I’ll make sure they do.” She stopped and face him. “And you too.”

He patted once on her shoulder, “That’s the plan.” Though, he hadn’t had more than a few hours of sleep each night for longer than was probably healthy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considering that in the TNG episode Parallels there is a Cardassian in a Starfleet uniform sitting at the helm, I'm assuming a treaty has been in place for at least four years by then, and would therefore have happened while the Cardassians still occupied Bajor. A bad move by the Feds.


	6. Chapter 6

Once again, Kee passively targeted the freighter and waited for Gam to position them so that the freighter was between them and the galor-class ship. Just as they’d expected, the Cardassians were quick to start escorting their freighters, but because of the rest of the Bajoran fleet’s actions along the border, they were only able to spare one ship per freighter. As long as they managed to keep the freighter in the crossfire and made a quick, invisible getaway, they’d be fine.

After studying the cloak for months now, Joial had come up with a list of ways they might be detected through the cloak. It was a much longer list than Kee would have been comfortable with, but most of them had to do with malfunctions. As long as they kept a close eye on the cloak, their power systems and their engines, they should be fine. That and steer clear of antiproton beams.

As soon as they were in position, Ren ordered, “Now.”

The cloak dropped and she began the firing pattern, but they’d only landed two shots when Veeso called out. “Klingon ship decloaking! It’s the ta’So.”

The ta’So must have been analyzing their previous attack methods, they seemed to know exactly where to expect them. Kee quickly retargeted the phasers as Gam moved to evade. She got off a few shots, but the Klingons were faster and they pounded the hull with their phasers.

By the time the Klingons were forced to turn around for another pass, another set of weapons fire slammed into the little ship. While the Klingons had kept them busy, the Cardassians had been able to maneuver into position.

Kee fired back even as Ren gave the order. “Get us out of here.”

Immediately power bled away from the weapons systems to activate the cloak as the helm sped them away.

* * *

_Agent 539’s report, confidential. I located the Klingon ship from which the Krehu stole the cloaking device, the ta’So’. The Krehu has been primarily attacking Cardassian shipping routes, but with cloaking technology and what appear to be Starfleet weapons, the Cardassians have had little ability to defend themselves. The crew of the Krehu is very thorough at covering their tracks, but the ta’So’ has identified several ports along the border that are friendly to them._

Jeff encrypted the transmission and sent it to Federation space with the appropriate routing information. He hated making reports in the field, no level of encryption was truly safe, but after four months on the Cardassian border, his superiors would have expected at least something by now.

He had staked out a nice spot near a meeting place rumor said the Krehu had used a number of times to meet a particular contact named Razka, a known smuggler. The Klingons had come to check it out, but the kind of subtlety needed here wasn’t the Klingon’s strong suit and they had moved on emptyhanded.

All he needed to do was wait and watch for this Razka to show up.


	7. Chapter 7

Kee stepped off of a Ferengi transport into the Torman V colony. She hiked her hood up over her head and shoved her hands into her pockets to make herself as invisible as possible. The meeting place changed each time she met with Razka and it always took her a moment to find her bearings.

When she located the designated establishment, she slipped inside the hazy, crowded space. Razka would not be seated where he was immediately visible, so she made her way toward the back where she spotted him.

Even though he didn’t look up when she approached, she knew he’d seen her the moment she came into view and she sunk into the seat across from him. “Tell me you have good news.”

He nodded with only a slight movement, “I’ve located what you need.”

Naren had finally given up on keeping their supply of hand phasers and rifles functional and had been pressuring her to acquire new ones. “In exchange we can give you the location of a… derelict Cardassian ship that hasn’t been reported missing yet.”

“I assume there’s plenty of salvage left to-” He abruptly cut off the rest of his sentence. “It appears you have an admirer.”

Without turning, she glanced in the direction he had been looking to see a Human male drain the remainder of his drink and stand as though to leave. But instead of making his way to the exit, he attempted to get lost in the crowd around the bar.

“I’ll take care of him. Head to these coordinates.” She said drawing out the numbers with her finger on the table.

“Your captain will be expecting you with me.” He said in a calmly warning tone.

“I’ll find my way.” She reached across the table to squeeze his hand and left the bar as noticeably as possible.

* * *

It was fortunate she didn’t intend to lose the Human, she wasn’t sure she could have if she’d tried. But as luck would have it, she’d planned on leading him anyway. There was an abandoned apartment building at the edge of town that would make a good, if not obvious, phony hideout. She couldn’t actually see him, but definitely felt that he was somewhere back there among the passersby and she slunk around to find the back door to the place.

Once out of view, she jog-walked to the end of the alley and around the back to find the back door was actually nonexistent. There was a jagged hole where a door had once been, so she hurried inside. The most logical place for a hideout would be on an upper level, so she headed up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, she found the first open door and entered, taking up a position behind a partition next to the door. As she lifted her phaser to her chest, she realized her hands were shaking. Being pursued, it seemed, brought on the same physiological response no matter if it was intended.

She waited as the seconds clicked by. If he was as good as she was beginning to think he was, she couldn’t know he was there until he was right in front of her. Just as she thought it, the faintest of shadows moved across the floor with no accompanying sound.

She peered around the corner to find him checking the room in the opposite direction and leveled her phaser at the back of his head. She could press the trigger and be done with it. But she needed to know what he was after. The cloak, or something more?

In the time it took her to make her decision, he’d taken another step into the room and began to turn in her direction. She covered the distance between them quickly and silently, making sure her phaser touched the nape of his neck at the exact moment her hand grasped his wrist and wrenched it behind his back.

He tensed for a split second as thought he would fight.

“Don’t do it.” She warned and tightened her grip for punctuation.

“You let me track you.” He said, relaxing slightly.

“Phaser.”

He slowly lowered his hand and tossed the phaser clattering away.

She pressed her phaser hard against his neck to remind him it was there while she released his wrist to check for other weapons. She slid her palm down his ribcage on each side, then around the back of his waist, unable to avoid noticing the contours at each location. She felt him tense when she reached across the front and down his thighs.

When she was satisfied that he had no weapons within reach, she pressed her hand into his back and shoved him away from her. He stepped away and turned back to her with his hands up.

“Why were you following me?” She demanded, forcing herself to hold his penetrating gaze without being distracted by the surge she felt in her chest.

“I wanted to see if you’d like to buy some girl scout cookies.”

She narrowed her eyes, so that’s how this was going to go. “You’re here about the cloak or the attacks on the Cardassians or both.”

“Both. But mostly the Cardassians.” He confirmed.

“What are you going to do? Ask us nicely to please stop attacking the Cardassians and give the Klingons back their cloak.” She mocked.

“I don’t really care if you give the cloak back. It seems like the Klingons are pretty close to making that happen themselves. What I am going to do is stop the attacks.”

She let out a single, sharp laugh. “And how do you expect to do that?”

“Any way I can.”

“Doesn’t look to me like you’re in a position to stop anything.”

“I’m exactly where I want to be.” He flashed her an infuriating smile.

She resisted the urge to step closer to him and shove the phaser under his chin to show him who was really in control here, but she wisely kept out of arms reach. She was fast enough, but he might be faster. “Whatever advantage you think you have here, don’t count on it. We will take care of the Cardassians and the Federation would be smart to stay out of it.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t stand by while a government we have a treaty with is attacked.”

“Oh yes, the treaty. The one that was negotiated while my people were still being worked to death in labor camps. I wonder if it was signed onboard a ship that was built with materials stripped from my world.” She sneered.

For a split second, his aloof facade cracked and she saw… something behind his dark eyes, but then it was gone an instant later. “I’m not here to debate Federation foreign policy. You’ve expelled them from your space, you showed them that you’re able to defend yourselves. It’s enough.”

“Nothing is ever enough with the Cardassians. If we were to show the smallest sigh of weakness-” She cut herself off. She didn’t need to justify their actions to this Human. She was about to tell him as much when someone pounded on the door behind her.

“ _mejDI'_ ” A heavy Klingon voice demanded from the other side.

How had they found her?

“ _Shuos_!” She cursed in Cardassian, keeping her eyes on the Human.

“Go. I’ll slow them down.” He said.

“Wha-” She gaped.

“ _mejDI' pagh Hegh SoH_ ” More pounding.

“Go.” He said urgently.

Without any other options, she bolted for the window, threw it open and climbed out. There was no walkway, only a narrow ledge that she hooked her heels on and jumped down to the street below.

The impact sent a painful shock through her calves and she bent and rolled to reduce the force. She came back up to her feet, already in position to run and dashed into the bustling street. Zigzagging through the people, her mind raced ahead, almost disregarding the Human. She couldn’t risk using the same transport off of this place that she’d arrived on, maybe she could find a Ferengi she could bribe.

* * *

She’d already vanished by the time Jeff picked up his phaser. A moment later, the Klingons burst through the door.

“Where is she?” The first one demanded.

Jeff put on his most bewildered expression. “She’s not here.” He said, looking around as though he had been searching this whole time.

“We detected Bajoran biosigns in this room.” He said, stepping up to confront him.

“So did I.” He lied. “I think she must have been projecting a false reading to get me off her trail.”

The Klingon shouted something the universal translator didn’t translate, then, “Search the building!”

Ignoring him, the Klingons charged out of the room to find her. As soon as he was alone, Jeff peeked out the window she’d left from, but she was nowhere in sight. She was right about one thing, the treaty had been poorly handled. It wasn’t until after the Cardassians withdrew from Bajor that the extent of what they’d done became public, but even before that, the Federation had known enough that they shouldn’t have entered into a treaty while that was going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the fact that in the episode Parallels there was a Cardassian in a Starfleet uniform at the helm of the Enterprise, I assume there's been a treaty in place for at least long enough for that Cardassian to make his way through The Academy.


	8. Chapter 8

Kee drummed her fingers on her desk while she waited for her message to be delivered. She couldn’t get him out of her head. How had he tracked her down? Why had he delayed the Klingons so she could get away? Why did she keep seeing his face every time she closed her eyes?

The computer-generated likeness she’d put together stared back at her from the screen strikingly close to the intensity she felt in person. She’d sent the image to Bajoran Intelligence for identification, though she wasn’t sure how much they’d be able to find.

The doors opened and Cadda strolled in to hand her a padd, probably the inventory of Razka’s delivery. She dropped the padd onto her desk and continued around unapologetically to see what was on her screen. “Is that him?”

Kee only nodded.

“Is he going to be a problem?”

“I don’t know yet, maybe.” She said, rubbing her neck. Because of him, instead of a nice trip back to the Krehu on Razka’s shuttle, she’d had to stow away on a Ferengi merchant ship in the corner of a cramped cargo bay.

“Too bad. He’s handsome.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” She lied.

Cadda narrowed her eyes with a smirk. “Right.”

“He’s working with the enemy.” She said simply.

“That doesn’t have to stop anything.” She sat on the corner of the desk. “If you want, I’d be happy to take care of him.”

Kee laughed, certain that Cadda meant both intimately or by killing him, whichever fit the situation at the time. “I’ll handle him myself.”

“I’m sure you will.” She said with a sly snicker as she stood and strolled out of the room.

* * *

“His name is Riggs.” Kee said, dropping a padd onto Ren’s desk. She’d reported the incident to him immediately when she got back to the ship, but he was sure it bothered her more than she let on. “Starfleet Intelligence. We have a handful of aliases for him, but none that match any guests or passengers anywhere in the vicinity of Torman V.”

“How much of a threat is he?”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m not sure yet. He’s,” she let out another resigned breath, “He’s a hard one to read. He’s intent on stopping us, but on the other hand, he helped me get away from the Klingons.”

Ren rubbed the back of his finger against the underside of his chin, “It’s interesting that he turned out to be Starfleet. The Jursehl just destroyed a sensor array near Umoth that they believe Starfleet was using to spy on us.”

He knew her well enough to catch the tiny flicker of unease before she covered it up.

“Keep an eye out,” he continued. “but we’ll proceed as planned unless we have a reason to change.”

“Agreed.” She said and handed him another padd. “This is the convoy schedule for the next month. Cadda was able to dig it up for me.”

He thumbed through the list, tapping on several line items that seemed too tempting to be real. “These are probably decoys.” He handed the padd back to her.

“I thought so too. I’ll select the shipments that are likely to have the components we need for the item, plus some that will hit them where it hurts.”

“Good. Have that to me as soon as possible. I want to press them while they’re still scrambling.”

“Will do.” She said and left his office.

They’d reached the limit of what they could accomplish with one ship and one cloak, the next plan was a long shot, but if they could pull it off, they wouldn’t have to worry about the Cardassians ever again.

* * *

There had to be a pattern to these attacks. These people were too cunning to use an advantage like a cloak for random attacks. Jeff just couldn’t tell what the pattern was. It didn’t help matters that the Cardassians were stubbornly close-mouthed about all of it. By the time he got wind of another one, they were not just long gone, the trail was absolutely cold, too.

“Computer, display side-by-side the manifests of the freighters.”

He’d been over these lists again and again, there didn’t seem to be any commonality. They took some parts of shipments while destroying others. And some they’d leave for scavengers to claim before the Cardassians could come in and clean up.

“What are you up to?” He asked the fuzzy image of the Krehu that was displayed on another screen.

The girl, woman, he corrected himself, she was twenty, had been identified by Cardassian records as Norvish Keedra, former rebel and first officer of the Krehu. The Cardassians had a bounty out for her and the others from the ship, which limited the ports where she could show her face. At some point, they’d need something they couldn’t get with the five-finger discount and she’d show up.

Until then, he had a puzzle to solve without all of the pieces and possibly extra ones that didn’t belong.


	9. Chapter 9

_“It’s not here!”_ Alerra said from the transporter room.

“What do you mean it’s not there?” Ren demanded over the noise of battle. The plan had been to come in, take out the freighter’s shields, beam the component off and get out before their galor-class escort could do too much damage to the Krehu.

“They must have it shielded somehow.” Kee said while her fingers flew over the console to fire on the galor-class ship with practiced precision.

That begged the question, did they know what they were looking for or were they just protecting a valuable piece of equipment? “Get over there and find it.” He ordered.

She nodded while Naren stepped in to take her place seamlessly.

“Cadda, meet me in the transporter-” She said as she left the bridge and the doors closed, cutting off the rest of what she’d said.

* * *

“Drop shields on my signal.” Alerra said into the comm as Kee and Cadda strode into the room.

 _“Acknowledged, ready when you are.”_ Naren said.

The two women joined Joial on the transporter pad with phaser rifles ready.

Alerra glanced at them, “Now.”

_“Shields down.”_

“Energizing.”

Alerra and the transporter room were washed away in a swirl of light to be replaced by the staccato flashes of a failing power system and the smell of scorched duranium.

As soon as her body felt solid again, Kee started forward through the corridor, stepping over Cardassian bodies clad in military uniforms.

She suppressed a cough as Joial passed a scanner around the area. “I still can’t pick up anything.” He said. “We’ll have to search manually.”

“That could take hours. Any way to speed up the process a bit?” She said without tearing her eyes away from the corridor ahead.

“Maybe.” He muttered, focusing on adjusting his scanner and leaving the rest to Kee and Cadda. Finally, he passed the scanner around more slowly than before. “I’m checking for holes.”

“Holes?” Cadda said. “I’m pretty sure Naren’s being careful not to blow any holes in this thing just yet.”

“No, holes in the sensor readings. Unless they set up false readings, the shielded location should show up as empty space.” His voice trailed off at the end as he concentrated. “I think I’ve got something. The second bay on the left.”

Kee led the small group forward past one door and to the next. Before they arrived at the door, an orange phaser blast sliced through the air next to her face. The three intruders slammed themselves flat against the bulkhead. Kee raised her phaser to fire back, but the end of the corridor was shrouded in smoke from the plasma fires.

If she couldn’t see them, they probably couldn’t see her. In which case, firing back would only allow them to target her. She stepped carefully forward past the door, keeping her phaser up and ready while Joial accessed the door controls and Cadda watched behind them.

The doors slid open and Joial slipped in first, followed by Cadda, then Kee backed in, locking the door afterward.

“We’ve lost comm signal.” He informed them. “That probably means we’re in the right place.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cadda check the cargo bay for enemy soldiers lying in wait while Joial searched for his ‘hole’. As the two moved silently through the room, Kee held position at the door and began to become aware of a barely audible, steady, rhythmic noise not consistent enough to be artificial. She knew that sound, it was… breathing.

She whipped around to see Cadda already reacting as she turned and fired on something, someone, out of Kee’s view. Returning to her watch over the door, she let out a steadying breath.

“I think I found something.” Joial said, rummaging around in the crates.

Over the noise of Joial’s search, she could hear Cardassians on the other side of the door working to override the lock. “Any time.” She called to him.

“I found the device generating the dampening field, but I’m not able to shut it down. Cadda, I need you to apply a directed energy discharge right here.”

“Shoot it? You got it.” She said, followed by a short burst from her phaser.

“Krehu, are you picking us up now?” He said.

 _“We hear you and sensors are picking up the device.”_ Alerra said. _“Preparing to beam it and you back.”_

Before the transporter could take hold, the doors parted in the middle and Kee opened fire without waiting to see the enemy. But once the transporter beam took effect, her weapon was disabled and Cardassians leaned in through the doorway. Unable to move or defend herself, she could only watch one of them aim in slow motion and fire at her.

She thought he had just missed her, but the transporter effect only masked the pain. As soon as she materialized, pain sliced through her arm. She looked to see that part of her uniform sleeve was burned away and she grasped at the wound as she dropped to her knees on the transporter platform.

“Transport complete!” Alerra said.

 _“Take us out.”_ Kee could hear Ren say through the comm channel.

The lights dimmed, indicating they’d cloaked and Cadda bent down to her. “Let’s get you to sickbay.”


	10. Chapter 10

Jeff leaned back from the screens displaying the freighter inventories, locations of the attacks and timetables. This was getting him nowhere. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Not only that, but based on the number and location of the attacks over the last few weeks, there was no way they were dealing with just one cloaked ship anymore. 

A second visit with L’taja had confirmed that no other cloaks had gone ‘missing’ since the first one. Meaning that the Bajorans may now be manufacturing their own version. At least it hadn’t been a wasted trip, a smile crept onto his lips at having followed up on his promise to his Klingon contact. His shoulder still ached from their _conversation_.

The Bajorans never seemed to miss an opportunity to up the stakes, but despite the recent attacks on the Federation, he still hoped for a solution other than war. Starfleet could do what was necessary to ensure the safety of the Federation, but he was certain that any kind of military response would only make the Bajorans dig in their heels further and make war inevitable.

He thought he was starting to understand them, their hardened determination, their urge to protect their piece of the galaxy. It made sense after all they’d been through. But that didn’t seem to get him any closer to figuring out what their plan was or predicting their next move.  
Cardassia was their clear first priority. It had to be some kind of attack directed there.

He went back to the inventories. He’d categorized the items they’d taken from the freighters. Set aside things like portable replicators, emergency supplies, food and clothing that undoubtedly were to be sent home to support the struggling population. Then there were supplies relating to starship operations, fuel, weapons, power relays. Between the cloak and the Starfleet phasers, there was a good chance they were burning through power relays left and right.

Finally, they’d taken a handful of other seemingly random parts and supplies that would be incompatible with their technology and would serve no purpose to them. He isolated the short list and called up everything they knew about each of them.

Most of them were related to Cardassian communications and command systems. Replacement parts, nothing usable. He closed his eyes to see the parts laid out together and how they could be combined. Suddenly his eyes snapped open. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He said to the image of the Krehu that he always kept active. There was one thing they could do with those pieces, but it would take guts as well as one more piece of the puzzle and he had an idea where they would seek out that last piece.

* * *

Kee took the plate of food from a replicator in a dimly-lit replimat on the neutral planet Nivoch. Her jittery contact was understandably hesitant to venture too far from the badlands and Kee was willing to go just about anywhere to acquire the last item they needed. Using the device Joial was still constructing, the Cardassian command codes she was here to pick up would allow them to take control of a galor-class warship, kill the crew and take over without the rest of the fleet being aware of it.

She’d only managed to take one bite when someone slid into the chair next to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that it was not her contact, it was that Human, Riggs. She swallowed her bite without looking up. “If you’re here for a thank you, don’t bother.” She said and took another bite.

“I’m not, but you’re welcome anyway.”

She shot a sideways glance at him while she kept chewing.

“The question is, why _you_ are here.”

“Meeting a supplier.” She said nonchalantly. “But, you already knew that.”

“Razka again?”

She snorted a short laugh, “Razka won’t come near me anymore because of you.” In fact, there was no way the contact she was to meet here would show now either.

“Sorry about that.”

“I doubt it. Why’d you do it anyway? Hold off the Klingons for me.”

“The Klingons are out for blood, I’m still hoping for a peaceful resolution to this.”

She stabbed at her food. The Federation did an awful lot of talking about peace, but when it came down to it, that only applied to races that could pose a threat to them. The Bajorans could never have posed a genuine threat to them, so they left them to die at the hands of the Cardassians when they made their treaty.

“Do you know how many times in my life I’ve had enough to eat?” She said without looking up.

“No.”

“Few enough to count. When I was five, my brothers and I saw a man murdered by some Cardassians right in front of us for breaking curfew. I’ve seen people beaten to death, worked until they fell down dead, tortured until their bodies were mutilated beyond recognition. And all while the Federation made peace with those murderers and then hid behind their treaty.”

“The treaty was handled poorly.” He said.

“‘Handled poorly.’ Wow, don’t overstate it or anything.” She said, her voice starting to rise despite her efforts to keep cool. This Human had a knack for getting under her skin.

He sighed, the first unguarded emotion she’d picked up from him so far. “What the Cardassians did was horrible, and you want to make them pay for it, I get it.”

She dropped the fork noisily onto the plate. “I don’t think you do!” She said loudly enough to begin to draw attention.

He glanced around uncomfortably. This place was a lot less friendly to his kind than to hers. “Whatever you’re planning to do with that device it won’t change the past.”

“That’s right it won’t. But it will make sure Cardassia is never a threat to us again.” She hissed and stood fast enough to nearly knock over her chair. She shoved her plate into the replicator so hard it broke, but it didn’t matter, it would dematerialize anyway.

She wasn’t sure why it had made her so angry, these were thoughts she’d had many times since she’d first heard about the Federation’s treaty, she thought as she pushed her way out the door. War with the Federation had kept the Cardassians split between fighting them and fighting the Resistance on Bajor, but when they reached an agreement with the Federation, they were able to focus on crushing the Resistance. Which they nearly did, but the more they trampled them down, the harder they fought until they’d forced them off of Bajoran soil and out of their space.

She’d made it part way down the street when he caught up to her. “The Federation can guarantee that the Cardassians would not be allowed to occupy Bajor again.”

“Trust that the Federation will protect us? No thank you.” She said without slowing her pace as she turned down an alley, unsure where she was even going. She hadn’t been planning to be here more than a few hours, so hadn’t booked accommodations.

“You have to be reasonable here. You’re no longer a rebellion fighting for your home, you’re your own sovereignty with the responsibility to take rational actions. You’re out for revenge, but it’s going to result in war.”

“War doesn’t scare us.”

He reached out to grasp her arm to stop her as though he was going to say more. But when she whipped around to face him, she found herself only centimeters from his face. She swallowed hard, staring only at his lips, afraid of what might happen if she looked into his eyes.

Her breath hitched as she stood, frozen with him. She wasn’t sure which one of them moved first, but before she realized what she was doing, her lips pressed against his and her hands found the loose parts of his shirt to pull him close.

His hands wrapped around her hips and he pushed her back hard against a refuse bin that slid back against the wall of a building. She should push him away, she should hit him for such a presumption, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything but pull him closer and kiss him deeper.

Captivated by the taste of his lips, she wrapped her legs around his to feel him against her. That did it, that was the end of any shred of her willpower. She could think of nothing else than having him.

He broke the seal of their lips and for a brief moment, she thought they might come to their senses. “Come with me.” He said, breathing hard and pulling her by the hand.  
She shouldn’t. It could be a Starfleet trap. But the urge inside her bade her to follow.

He led her around the corner and to a building and into a lift where their bodies found each other again as though magnetically charged. His hands roamed her body as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

The lift jolted to a stop before things could progress too far for a public location. He lifted her up off her feet and pinned her against the wall while he groped for the keypad to open the door to his room without his lips leaving hers.

When he finally had the door open, he walked her backwards inside while she tore at the clasps of his shirt. She only had it part way open when she gave up and wadded the fabric up in her fists and shoved him onto the bed.

She knelt on the bed over him and bent down to kiss him. Her tongue slid against his and the feel of it sent a surge through her body. His fingers found their way to the hem of her tanktop and tugged it free of her pants and she pulled it the rest of the way off.

His hands ran down along the sides of her ribcage to the waist of her pants and he began working to unfasten them as she did the same to him, tugging at the clasps until she freed him.

* * *

Her forehead rested against his sweat-dampened chest for a few breaths and she swallowed to try to wet her suddenly parched throat. Finally, she leaned over and rolled off of him.

Lying on her back next to him, she breathed, “That probably wasn’t a good idea.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

She couldn’t object to that. “I’m still not going to change our plans.”

“And I’m still going to try to stop you.” He said smoothly.

She shrugged mentally and sat up to gather her clothes, but he reached out to take her hand. “Before you go…” He said, pulling her toward him.

She leaned down for one last kiss, one last taste of his lips before pulling away.

* * *

Kee stomped out of the lodging house back into the alley. She heel-kicked the refuse bin as she passed by it, leaving a dent in the side with her heavy boot. Whether she was more angry with herself for losing control like that or with _him_ for fouling up her pickup, she couldn’t say.

She yanked the messy ponytail out of her hair and combed her fingers through to get it back up. He was right about one thing, this wasn’t the Resistance anymore, she was a military officer and there were certain codes of conduct she was expected to follow. _‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’_ She certainly would not be telling _anyone_ about this.

Now she had to try to track down a skittish contact who was virtually invisible in the best of circumstances.


	11. Chapter 11

It took her three more days to get Riggs off her trail, and another five to find her contact and convince him that it was safe to meet. By then he’d moved on to Lamenda Prime. They arrived and the same location at the same time, he passed her an isolinear rod without so much as a word passing between them. The whole thing took only a few seconds. Almost anticlimactic considering it took over a month to set it up in the first place then another week to salvage it.

With the rod in hand and verified, she found her way back to her ship. She beamed into the transporter room to a relieved Alerra. “Boy, I’m glad to see you. We were afraid something happened to you.”

“Just a delay.” She said simply, stepping down off of the platform. She was anxious to change her clothes and get a few hours of sleep, but it would have to wait until she’d checked in with Ren.

She navigated the corridors toward his office. It was a small ship, not even two dozen crew quarters, a handful of tiny executive offices, bridge, engineering, one transporter room, a small sickbay and a cargo bay. It didn’t take long to get anywhere, and less than a minute to make it from the transporter room to Ren’s office.

His door was open when she approached as it often was. She walked inside and laid the isolinear rod on his desk without a word.

He smiled and picked it up, holding it to the light as though he could somehow see the information contained within it. “Good job. I assume you verified it.”

“I was able to access a navigational control post’s system with it. But Joial will need to conduct final tests when he’s finished.”

“He is. You can take it to him right away.” He said, handing her back the rod. “Anything else to report?”

He surely would want more of an explanation for her delay than she’d given Alerra. “Riggs tracked me down again. Spooked the contact.”

He leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh but let her continue.

“He’s figured out enough of our plans to know what I was there for.”

“Any idea how much he knows?”

She shook her head, they hadn’t exactly done a lot of talking. “He knows we’re going after the Cardassians, and that we now have the ability to override their command systems, but I doubt he knows _what_ we’re planning or when.”

“Taking out unmanned Federation outposts and sensor arrays is one thing. Killing a Starfleet operative is something I’d rather not do unless we really have to.”

“It would be provocative at the least.”

“It’s your call, you know this guy better than any of us. If he gets too close or goes from an annoyance to a real threat, you’re authorized to take any actions necessary to ensure the success of our plans.”

She nodded in agreement. A substantial mandate indeed. And one she hoped she wouldn’t need to fulfill.

“What is the status of our plan?” She asked, finally.

“As soon as we picked you up, we’re to rendezvous with the Triya to pick up the first infiltration crew. Our first target, the Vetar, is currently in the Avenal system.”

“I’ll have the crew bunk up in pairs to make room for the other crew and work with Joial on an attack plan.” She was about to leave when it seemed like he had more to say, so she waited.

“We’re doing the right thing, right?” He asked in a tone of voice the rest of the crew never heard.

A lump formed in her throat. Until now she’d been able to dismiss the occasional doubt, ignore the cringe she felt every time they dug themselves deeper, but if he was having reservations… “We don’t have any other options. We’re stuck between two huge empires, one of them has already shown themselves to be our enemy and the other has an alliance with them. We have to stake our claim to our territory and send a message that we won’t be conquered again.” She said with more certainty than she felt.

“You’re right. Of course. I just hope this doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

She smiled in a way that she hoped would be reassuring to her mentor and source of strength, “If it does, we’ll overcome that the way we have everything else.”


	12. Chapter 12

Another planet, another alley. While he waited for Pascal, Jeff wondered how much of his career had been spent in grungy alleys, seedy motels and sleazy bars. Not exactly what he’d had in mind while he took his Academy entrance exams all those years ago, but it was what his life had become. The autonomy, he decided, was worth those discomforts. He would never have fit in well on a starship anyway. 

“Tell me you have good news.” Pascal appeared out of nowhere.

“Not exactly.” He hated that what he was about to do could result in _her_ death, but she’d made the choice for him. “I believe the Bajorans have a device that could allow them to override Cardassian command systems and they have the codes to go with it.”

The news brought no reaction, this guy was a pro. “Do you know what their target is?”

“No. It could be anything within Cardassian space. They aren’t afraid to take on even the most ambitious targets.”

“So I’ve heard. We’ll need to notify the Cardassians to be on the alert, but it will take time to mobilize after what the Bajorans have already done to them. Do anything you can to slow them down.”

“Yes, sir.”

With that, Pascal disappeared back wherever he came from.

 _What the Bajorans have done._ He thought. The Cardassians had done far worse and the Federation still made a treaty with them. He caught himself, she was beginning to get into his head. This wasn’t about who did what, it was about moving toward a peaceful resolution instead of away from one.

Still, he’d done enough research on the Occupation by now to understand why they felt the way they did. The Federation should have made the treaty on the condition that they Cardassians with draw from Bajor, but instead, they’d turned a blind eye in order to end a costly war for themselves.

He tried to anticipate what they’d do if the Federation reached out a friendly hand. Most definitely slap it away again as they had immediately after the Withdrawal. Even though they’d all but defeated the Cardassians, nothing had really changed.

There was little chance either he or the Cardassians would be able to stop the coming attack. He would try, of course, but they always seemed to be one step ahead of him. _She_ always seemed to be one step ahead. He understood her thinking process well enough, but again and again she always got there before he did. He supposed that was the result of pursuing a like-minded person. The one in pursuit would always be just behind. If the situation was reversed, maybe he’d be the one a step ahead.

An involuntary smile snuck up on him at the thought of being pursued by her. What had happened between them wasn’t just a fluke, he could feel it. In another place, another time, maybe they could have had something. A place and time where she would use her talent for good. But he deflated slightly when he couldn’t come up with a single, plausible scenario where they would both cross paths and be available to be together in that way. And in _this_ place and time, he may have just killed her.

But she had her duty and he had his.

* * *

When cloaked, the lights from the consoles seemed almost blinding once their eyes adjusted to the dim overhead lights. It would have been a small adjustment to dim the controls, too, when the cloak was engaged, but it was a low priority.

Kee squinted at them through a splitting headache. The security officer from the infiltration crew had wanted to do some sparing the night before. He was good, he’d flipped her over on her back on one of their matches and she’d hit the back of her head on the floor off of the mat. She was pretty sure it wasn’t serious, though.

The bridge had been completely silent the entire time they’d been tracking the Cardassian ship, the Kreskatt, waiting for them to be out of the nearest navigational control post’s sensor range. She watched the display, just a few more minutes.

Joial assured her that everything was set to go, but she had to wonder whether Riggs could have somehow sabotaged either the codes or the hardware. They had tested the device, she reminded herself. The very fact that he’d tracked her down not once but twice, however, told her not to underestimate him.

She’d been angry at first about what had happened between them. Then she passed it off as some kind of release of pent up stress. Now she kept catching herself thinking back to it whenever she had a spare moment. And when she did, she had to remember to keep the smile off of her face. Her body immediately responded at just the thought of the taste of his lips and his hands on her bare skin.

No. She stopped herself, this was the worst possible time for that.

“All stations prepare to initiate.” Ren said as the Cardassian symbol on her readout touched the line indicating the edge of the control post’s sensor range.

Since she was not operating the cloak or the device or the transporter, she was to coordinate the procedure and be ready on weapons in case anything went wrong.

The bridge crew held a collective breath as they watched their displays.

“Begin.” Ren said simply.

“Drop cloak.” Kee said. “Joial.”

 _“Powering up.”_ He said over the comm as the bridge lights came up. “Connecting to command systems.”

“They’re raising their shields and powering weapons.” Kee warned, ready to fight or flee.

_“We’re in. I’m sending the signal to shut down their communications systems. And weapons.”_

There was a tense delay, then the galor-class ship’s weapons shut down.

_“Now shields.”_

The enemy ship obeyed.

“Neurocine.” Kee prompted.

_“Accessing life support systems. Releasing Neurocine gas.”_

“Prepare for transport.” Kee said to the transporter room.

 _“Ready.”_ Alerra answered.

 _“Neurocine has reached toxic levels.”_ Joial said.

“Life signs are dropping.” Veeso informed them.

“Tell us when they reach zero.” Kee said. Killing the crew of an entire galor-class ship in a matter of minutes was not small feat, but at the moment, it seemed achingly slow.

“Zero life signs.”

“Vent the gas.” She said.

_“Venting gas.”_

“Start beaming them over.”

_“Energizing.”_

_“The air is breathable.”_ Joial confirmed.

Seconds turned into minutes. They had thirty people to beam over, three at a time and it took just under a minute between the time one trio stepped onto the pad and the next did so. She watched the sensor readout for incoming ships and the comm incase the team triggered some kind of automated emergency transmission. Veeso would also be monitoring both.

 _“I’m prepared to transport over with the last two members of my crew.”_ That voice was Colonel Day, the man who would be captaining the ship that was to be renamed Laazku-Dase, or Venom’s Requite.

“Acknowledged and may the Prophets be with you.” Ren said.

 _May the Prophets be with us all_ after what we’re doing here, Kee thought.

 _“Transport complete.”_ Came Alerra’s voice.

 _“I’m releasing command control.”_ Joial said.

“Their engines are powering up.” Kee said. That indicated the new crew had control of the ship. Weapons, shields and communications switched on and off as they hurriedly tested systems. “They’re resuming course.” They would continue on their patrol rout as though nothing had happened until it was time to strike.

“Any chance we were detected?” Ren asked.

Kee double-checked her readings, “No subspace signals were transmitted, no ships entered sensor range, nothing.”

“Good job, people. Let’s cloak and move on to the next one.”

* * *

“Drop cloak.” Kee said, carrying out the exact procedure once again after they’d picked up another infiltration crew. “Joial.”

 _“Powering up.”_ He said over the comm as the bridge lights came up. “Connecting to command systems.”

“They’re raising shields and powering weapons.”

_“We’re in. Shutting down their communications systems. Weapons.”_

The Drell’s weapons shut down.

_“Shields.”_

“Neurocine.”

_“Accessing life support systems. Releasing Neurocine.”_

“Prepare for transport.”

_“Ready.”_

_“Neurocine has reached toxic levels.”_

“Zero life signs.”

_“Venting gas.”_

_“Energizing.”_

_“The air is breathable.”_

The space around them was absolutely still and silent while they waited.

_“Transport complete.”_

_“I’m releasing command control.”_

“Their engines are powering up.” Kee said. “They’re resuming course.”

“Were we detected?” Ren asked.

“No subspace signals were transmitted, no ships entered sensor range, nothing.”

Just like last time, the Drell became the Zan’pel. One more to go.


	13. Chapter 13

It had been weeks since Jeff heard a single peep from the Bajorans. No attacks, no contact with their network of smugglers. The ones he knew of, anyway. Everything had just stopped. They weren’t the type to play mind games, and they had been on such a roll that he couldn’t imagine they would just quit. They were up to something with those command codes. The question was whether the Cardassians would be able to change them before the Bajorans carried out their attack.

He had positioned his shuttle above Cardassia Prime’s northern pole so he could camp out unnoticed, listening and watching for any clue as to their plan. The Bajorans’ goal was to make sure the Cardassians were never a threat to them again. How would they use the command codes to accomplish that? If they somehow wiped out the remains of the Cardassian fleet, but left Central Command intact, there was still a chance they could recover. No, they’d have to strike at the heart of the military to be certain. But would they stop there? There was still the Detapa Council. Would they attack them too? It was certainly in line with their MO.

But why had they been so damn quiet lately? What were they waiting for?

* * *

The crew of the Krehu stalked their next prey, the Tojit. Kee wished for a moment that she’d insisted on having the console controls dimmed while cloaked after the last one.

Bajoran Intelligence had not picked up any subspace chatter to indicate the Cardassians were aware that their other two ships had been commandeered.

They followed the Tojit around the back side of Delavia VI where the planet would momentarily block them from nearby sensor posts.

“Follow the procedure just like before.” Ren reminded them. It would be easy to get lax after two successful attacks.

The moment they entered the sensor blind spot, Kee initiated the operation. “Drop cloak.”

The enemy ship raised shields and powered weapons just like the others. _Not for long._ She thought confidently.

 _“Connecting to command systems.”_ Joial said.

She waited for the shields and weapons to power down, but they didn’t.

_“Hold on. There’s something wrong.”_

Her heart raced suddenly at the thought of taking on a fully operational galor-class ship. She prepared to raise shields and weapons but gave Joial as much time as possible. Like the cloak, their command override device drew too much power to use it at the same time as the weapons.

“Joial?” Ren prompted, already out of his chair.

 _“Everything is working,”_ He said tightly, _“but I can’t get into their systems.”_

Ren spun around to face her. _Riggs_. He had to have warned them to change their codes. She should have killed him when she had the chance.

“Abort. Shields and weapons up.” He ordered.

“Even if we’re able to disable that ship, if we fire on it, it’ll leave battle damage and we won’t be able to use it.” She argued as she obeyed. And if, by some miracle, they destroyed it, a missing ship could alert the enemy to their plans.

“We’ll have to take the risk.”

“Another Cardassian ship just came around from the far side of the planet!” Veeso announced urgently.

The readings appeared on her console. The ship, another galor-class, had its weapons already fully charged and ready.

“Get us out of here.”

Gam swung the ship around to move away, but the Cardassians stayed right with them. Before she could get a target lock, the second one opened fire.

In a fierce assault, their phasers, joined by the Tojit’s, overloaded the Krehu’s shields and pounded into their bare hull.

“Cloak.” Ren ordered even as Gam continued to try to shake them.

“I can’t. The emitters blew when the shields went down.” Veeso said.

 _“Give me a few minutes.”_ Joial said, his voice already muffled by machinery.

They were defenseless from behind. Like Klingon ships, they didn’t have aft-mounted weapons. The ship continued to shake from the enemy fire. She searched for something, anything, that would buy them time to get the cloak back up. What was left in the cargo bay from their last raid? She wondered and called up the inventory.

Diamide, toranium, seofurane, then she saw argine. That would do it. “I have an idea.” She said and didn’t wait for Ren’s approval to open a channel to the cargo bay. “Evacuate the cargo bay.”

 _It’ll be a shame to lose that diamide_ , she though as she watched the infiltration crew cram themselves into the corridor. When the bay was empty, she said, “I’m decompressing the cargo bay. Their weapons fire should ignite that crate of argine.” She said as she prepared to do so.

“Do it.” Ren said, but she had already initiated the command anyway.

The main viewer switched to aft view to see the crates and shipping containers drifting out behind them. Sure enough, a phaser blast from the Tojit passed close enough to the argine crate to ignite it. The flash overwhelmed the view screen, forcing everyone on the bridge to turn away in unison. Everyone but Gam, who anticipated the explosion enough to veer away so that the ship only rocked slightly.

Sensors showed that the blast had slowed down the Cardassians, but only a little bit. She hoped it would be enough.

 _“Almost there.”_ Jayur’s rushed voice came over the comm, answering her unspoken question. They could make it if nothing else went wrong.

Enemy fire nailed them from behind again, but the added distance meant it was slightly easier to bear, though not insignificant. Power relays behind her burst and she wondered how far past the safety limits Gam was pushing the engines. Then the lights dimmed and for a frightful moment she thought they were dead in space, but the engines continued to vibrate in the deck.

“We’re cloaking.” Veeso reported.

“Change course and go to warp.” Ren said. “Head for open space.”

After a confused moment, the Cardassian ships began a search pattern, but they had no desire to stick around.

Kee swallowed hard as much to hide her shaking breath as to wet her dry throat.

* * *

“You knew he was aware of our plan and you let him go?!” Major Tahna, head of the infiltration crew, shouted at her, but she met his eyes without flinching.

“I was _trying_ to avoid escalating tensions with the Federation that _your_ group is responsible for.” For the most part, the old Resistance cells had remained together and the Kohn-Ma had carried out a number of attacks on the Federation. “And he didn’t know of our plan, only that we have the codes.”

“Which he clearly informed the Cardassians so they could change them.”

“Killing a Federation agent would have only made things worse. We’d be fighting a war on both sides. Do you know what they call that? Surrounded.”

Ren stepped in, physically, before Tahna could reply. “Bajoran Intelligence had no knowledge of this information?”

Kee made a dismissive wave with one hand. “They think the Obsidian Order may be taking care of the matter.”

Tahna reluctantly tore his glare away from her and addressed Ren. “We have to carry out the final phase of the attack now.”

“We only have two of the three cruisers we planned on.” Ren warned.

“We can’t risk another ambush. And we can’t risk them predicting our final target.”

“We have three other cloaked ships, we could work together to bag the third cruiser.”

Tahna shook his head, “We’ve lost the element of surprise, we’d have to disable the ship by force and if we approach Cardassia Prime with battle damage, it would put us under too much scrutiny.”

“Besides,” Kee spoke up, “it would take too much time. If the Order is aware of the situation and they had an operative on either the Kreskatt or the Drell and they don’t check in, they’ll know something is up. I agree with Tahna, we need to do it immediately.”

“Okay, you’ve made your point.” Ren said. Tahna outranked him, but the Krehu had been the central pivot of the whole venture. If he objected, Command would listen to him. Finally, he turned to her, “Where are the Laazku-Das and Zan’pel?”

She thought for a moment. “The Laz should be somewhere near the Valo system and the Zan near Bryma. It would take them just under a day to reach the Cardassian system.”

“And what of your crew, since you won’t have a ship?” Ren asked Tahna.

“Since we don’t have the advantage of command codes,” he scowled briefly at Kee, “we’ll encounter much more resistance. My crew will be a landing party.”

Besides being reckless, the Kohn-Ma had a reputation for being the toughest and most ruthless of the Bajoran Resistance. If anyone could succeed in storming Central Command and the offices of the Detapa Council, it would be them.

“Contact our other ships, tell them to converge at the preset coordinates in twenty-six hours.” Ren told her. That included not just the two Cardassian ships, but their three cloaked ships that were lurking somewhere nearby.

“Right away.” She said and he left, presumably to the bridge.

She started toward the door but Tahna stopped her with the back of his hand on her shoulder. “I want that Starfleet agent dead. That’s an order. Understand?”

She nodded reluctantly and he let her go.


	14. Chapter 14

Jeff had been trying for hours to reach someone in the Cardassian government with no luck. He’d been bounced around between low-level clerks only to have one hang up on him so he could start all over again. He wasn’t the type to think _they all look alike_ , but after a while, he couldn’t tell anymore if he was talking to someone he’d already spoken with.

A female Cardassian with a severe hairstyle appeared on his screen and he was fairly certain he hadn’t spoken to her before. Her expression darkened when she saw that he wasn’t a fellow Cardassian. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve been trying to talk to someone regarding the safety of the members of the Detapa Council.” He said as pleasantly as he could.

“Security for the Detapa Council is handled by the military. I do not have clearance to transfer you to a military representative, and I _doubt_ you have the clearance to talk to them” She said dismissively, already reaching to disconnect.

“Wait!” He said more aggressively than he meant to, but at least she stopped and waited for him to continue. “I don’t care if you have clearance or not! You’re going to put me through to someone who handles security for the Detapa Council.”

Her face was unreadable and he expected her to close the link any second, but instead, her eyes softened and her tongue glided along her upper lip. “Then I’d better obey.” She purred and input the command without her eyes leaving his.

When the screen went blank, he shook his head. So, Cardassian women appreciated a show of force. He’d file that away for future use.

A young-ish Cardassian male in a military uniform with the rank of Gil appeared on screen. Finally, progress, this was the first non-civilian he’d spoken to so far. “What is your clearance code?” He said with a bored expression.

“I don’t have a clearance code.” Jeff admitted.

The man sighed heavily and reached to hang up.

“Wait, wait! I have information regarding the safety of the Detapa Council and Central Command.” Who would have thought it would be this difficult to warn someone of danger?

“Have your government acquire the proper clearance and try again.”

“There’s no time for that. I believe the Bajorans are targeting both of your government bodies in an imminent attack.”

“The Bajorans are armed with a bunch of half-century-old ships. They wouldn’t make it anywhere near Prime.”

“I believe they may have captured at least one galor-glass warship.”

He scoffed, “They don’t have the cognitive capacity to plan anything that sophisticated.”

Jeff knew the exact opposite to be true, but at least he seemed to have this Gil interested. “Check the action reports for earlier today. You’ll see that the Tojit and the Yugar had a run-in with one of the Bajoran cloak ships where they had attempted to take remote control of the Tojit.”

He was silent while he looked up the report and skimmed it. “This was a failed attempt, it doesn’t prove that they have control of other ships already. No ships have gone missing.”

“It’s enough to tell you that it’s a possibility. They probably targeted ships out on border patrol that don’t often interact with other ships or Central Command.”

He could see he was getting through, but the young Cardassian was not yet ready to act.

“We’re talking about a surgical strike at the heart of your government. Even if the possibility is remote, isn’t it worth it to take precautions?”

Career advancement for saving the lives of their leaders would have been his next argument, but it turned out he didn’t have to use it.

“I will take this information to my superiors. Is there anything more you can tell me?”

He hesitated, but he had to do it. “You should sweep the area around Prime continually with an antiproton beam.”

“What will that do?” He asked, genuinely curious.

“You may be able to detect the cloaked ships.”

He nodded and closed the channel, leaving Jeff to wait and hope the Bajorans called off this madness.


	15. Chapter 15

“Wait up!”

Kee heard Naren’s voice behind her as she stalked the corridor back to the bridge. She half-turned and slowed her pace for him to catch up. She’d just finished final systems checks throughout the ship. The crew had been working non-stop for the last twenty-five hours and she’d dare say the ship had never been in such good condition since it was commissioned sixty years ago.

When he joined her, he reached inside the case he was carrying and handed her a phaser. “Here.”

It was one of the Pygorian phasers Razka had delivered months ago. She checked the charge to see it was full. “Thanks. Are you almost finished?”

“I’ve distributed freshly charged phasers to everyone but the bridge crew.”

The door to the bridge opened as she tucked the phaser into her belt. Naren made his way through the bridge with the phasers while Kee went to the tactical station where Cadda was already stepping aside.

“I want you to remain stationed here incase we’re boarded or I’m incapacitated during the assault.” She told her.

“Yes _sir_.” She said in an overly dramatic tone.

Kee only tipped her head toward her and rolled her eyes. Either of those eventualities were a distinct possibility. She confirmed the console was functioning properly, more for something to keep herself occupied than actual necessity. If there had been anything wrong with it, Cadda would have said so.

Naren finished his circuit of the bridge by handing Cadda a weapon and left to return to the armory.

Kee watched Gam as he piloted the Krehu close enough to the underside of the Laazku-Das that she could have reached out and touched it if she were standing on the top. The Cardassians had begun sweeping the area with antiprotons, _thank you Federation_ , she though cynically, and the cloaked ships were less likely to be detected under the bellies of the cruisers. But it took some nerve to be the pilot. She’d been impressed by how quickly he picked up the skill considering he’d never sat down at a helm before the Withdrawal.

Besides their proximity to the Laazku-Das, there was another cloaked ship right in front of them. Her sensor display showed a ghosted-out representation of the Dralin only a few meters ahead of them. Their only indication of the location of the cloaked ships came from an encrypted beacon. In the midst of battle, it was vital that they know the exact locations of their sister ships. She only hoped none of the beacons went offline.

“Entering the Cardassian system.” Veeso announced.

As they proceeded into the system her display lit up with dozens of blips and more coming up every second as the sensors resolved.

“Prophets.” Ren muttered from his seat. What sensors identified as a fleet of everything from galor-class warships down to two-man fighters, on the viewscreen looked like a brown dust cloud surrounding Cardassia Prime. “Comms open.” He said as soon as he’d recovered.

“Opening a channel to the attack armada.” Veeso said.

 _“Laazku-Das.”_ Colonel Day reported in.

 _“Dralin.”_ Captain Degda said.

 _“Sictu.”_ Captain Jersa.

 _“Zan’pel.”_ Colonel Ari.

 _“Bolri.”_ Captain Jemeld.

“Contact confirmed with all ships.” Veeso reported.

_“This is the Laz, we’re being hailed by one of the Cardassian ships. Opening a channel with holographic image superimposed.”_

They waited while the ship covering them went under scrutiny. If Day’s bluff wasn’t convincing or if the ship had been reported missing, they’d get nowhere near the planet.

 _“Proceeding to Cardassia Prime.”_ Day said, finally.

The armada approached the blockade as though to join them. As soon as they were within weapons range, Ren gave the signal. “Begin.”

* * *

From his vantage point, Jeff’s sensors picked up a pair of galor-class ships entering the system. The sixth and sevnth to join the blockade. He could only imagine the tension on those ships as they waited. There had still been no sign that the council members were preparing to evacuate. He doubted Central Command would evacuate, but they most likely would have fortified their position by now.

Then, with a sudden burst of weapons fire, it began.

The two newcomers opened fire on the other Cardassian ships and four Bajoran raiders decloaked and spread out from under like pilot fish scattering from a shark. The Cardassians scrambled to respond, but Jeff wasn’t watching the battle. A military passenger ship entered orbit above the Detapa Council chambers and began a landing descent.

“Finally.” He said, watching their progress closely.

* * *

Kee strafed a pair of fighters with phaser fire, trying to open up a gap so they or one of the others could get through to the planet. The moment she stopped firing, Veeso engaged the cloak and Gam veered off in other direction. It was a maneuver they’d practiced for months, Ren called it ‘cloak and run’.

She concentrated on not standing on the balls of her feet while she waited for her turn again. Her display showed the other cloak ships fading in and out as they also executed the maneuver. The Laz and the Zan crawled slowly through the firefight. They took a pounding, but they were made for it, concentrating their massive firepower on the other galors.

Gam was maneuvering into position again and she chose her next targets. The moment the cloak dropped, she powered weapons and laid down fire.

 _“There’s a passenger transport landing near the council chambers.”_ Degda said.

“I see it, can you break through?” Ren asked.

_“Not under cloak, they’ve formed an antiproton web above that area.”_

“Kee concentrate your attack here.” He tapped a grouping of hideki-class ships on his display and his selection showed on her panel.

It never occurred to her to confirm to him that she had heard him, he knew she did. She simply carried out the order. Gam moved them into position, Veeso dropped the cloak and she let loose. Unlike the other Bajoran ships, the Krehu’s Starfleet phasers packed far more power.

Extending the length of her attack more than previous runs, she pounded into three of the small ships that were generating the antiproton web, destroying two and disabling the third.

A fireball enveloped the viewscreen as Gam flew through the aftermath and Veeso had cloaked again by the time they passed through it.

_“We’re through. Targeting the transport ship.”_

* * *

“Close the gap!” Jeff shouted uselessly at his sensor display.

Moments later the sure sign of a decloaking ship shimmered above the transport ship when it was still fifty kilometers from the landing site. Phaser fire from the Bajoran ship lashed out, cutting through the unprotected hull of the transport like it wasn’t there. The transport listed and burned, trying in vain to stay in the air. One final blast from the Bajorans sent it plummeting into the city below.

The Bajoran ship re-cloaked, using that attack-cloak-attack maneuver he’d been seeing, he could only assume they were coming around to fire on the council chamber itself. The Cardassians must have seen the pattern too. Three fighters swooped down from orbit right into the path of the decloaking Bajoran ship.

In the fraction of a second between cloak and shields, the fighters blasted the Bajoran ship until it careened into the planet below, cutting a path through the low buildings of the city.

The Cardassians had reestablished their antiproton field, but it was only a matter of time before another one broke through and there was no time to bring in another transport. He wasn’t sure if his small shuttle would hold them all or if he’d even be able to get down to the surface and away again, but he had to try. He turned his chair to the helm control panel and took the shuttle down.

* * *

“I’m picking up a Federation signature in low orbit above the pole. They’re moving toward the council chambers.” Veeso said.

Kee couldn’t spare even a moment to check the readings, but there was no doubt it was him.

“Keep trying to punch through again, we have to take down that shuttle.” Ren said.

The problem was that the Cardassians were beginning to predict where they would decloak. On their last cloak and run, they’d taken several shots before their shields activated.

Gam sped toward a cluster she’d indicated to him and the cloak began to drop. Before they were fully visible, a hideki-class ship swung out from behind the planet’s lone moon. “Recloak!” She called to Veeso, but the process was too far along.

Gam veered off, but the attacking ship’s phasers slammed into their hull along their aft port then they gave up when their last shot hit the shields. Inertial dampers struggled and failed to mask their out of control corkscrew. Lights dimmed again, indicating the cloak was back up.

“We’ve lost port phasers.” Kee reported even as said equipment tumbled ahead of them and Gam regained control of the ship.

“The helm is sluggish.” He said.

“Shields took a hit too, down to fourty-nine percent.” She said. Prophets help them if they lost the cloak.

“Engineering reports they’re working on the helm controls and shields.” Veeso added helpfully.

Sluggish or not, Gam brought the ship in a wide arc to return to the battle.

* * *

Luck was with him, the Bajorans hadn’t broken through the Cardassian lines again… yet. He landed his shuttle on the padd where the transport had been headed and saw that the council members were waiting there under a shelter. He hit the key to open the hatch and darted through.

“Come on! I’ll get you out of here.” He shouted to them, beckoning with his hand.

They hesitated but started toward him. The battle raged above them in surreal silence. The ships were only specks and the weapons fire bursts of light between them. Only when an errant shot hit the atmosphere with a thunderous boom could one get a sense of the power above them.

He ushered them past him into the shuttle and when the last one had entered, he closed the hatch and headed forward.

* * *

“What’s he doing?” Cadda exclaimed.

Kee stole a glance at the readout. Colonel Day was taking the Laz straight for the antiproton web. “His shields and weapons are down, what does he think he’s going do?”

“I don’t think he’s planning to take them out one at a time.” Veeso said.

_“You said you needed a path cleared, right?”_

Two Cardassian-controlled galors moved in after him and drilled their weapons into the hull on the port side. Power conduits along the outer hull burst, gas vented, bulkheads tumbled away, but Day continued his course.

By the time he reached his target, power had failed and sensors detected a building core breach, but inertia and the planet’s gravity carried them onward. In slow motion, the Laz plowed through the little ships. Each collision looked like a tiny pop against the massive cruiser.

“Can you get us through before the core breaches?” Ren asked.

“Thirty-four seconds? No problem.” Gam said, already speeding towards it.

The aft section of the Laz slipped past on the viewscreen. Representations of the Sictu and Bolri joined their descent toward the target on the planet just as the Laz exploded and the shockwave rolled over them.

“The Federation ship is breaking orbit.” Veeso said.

 _“We’re on it. Krehu, you need to deliver the landing party.”_ Captain Jersa said.

Kee stared at the Federation emblem on her screen for a moment, torn between hoping he would make it and hoping they blew him out of the sky and wanting to go after him herself.

“Target Central Command headquarters.” Ren said.

She located the target. The building was heavily fortified. They’d need more time than they had to fully level it and all of the sub-basements. Time they would have had it she’d done her job in the first place and killed the Federation agent. Instead, the Cardassians had been warned and she would have only enough time to take out the above-ground structure before the Cardassians were on top of them.

“Ready. Decloak.” She said. The moment she had weapons, or rather ‘weapon’ since there was only one emitter left, she unloaded a steady stream of energy into the military commend center. A moment later, the Bolri joined them.

“Incoming.” Veeso warned.

Kee stopped firing as Gam pulled away from the surface to give them some room to maneuver as did their counterparts on the Bolri.

“Still picking up multiple Cardassian biosigns in the underground levels.” Veeso said.

“Bolri, cover us while we beam down Tahna’s crew.” Ren said.

 _“Coming around for you.”_ Jemeld said.

Cardassian fighters swarmed the area, searching for the attackers with their antiprotons.

“Get us as far out as possible while staying within transporter range.” Ren ordered.

The Bolri shadowed them as they found the best possibly position.

Ren tapped the control for ship-wide communications. “We’re about to begin beaming the landing party to the surface. We’ll be decloaked, without shields and stationary. Be prepared in case we’re boarded and stay at your stations as long as you can.” His eyes locked with Kee’s for a moment, then he nodded.

“Drop cloak.” She struggled to keep the tremble out of her voice. “Alerra, begin transport.”

_“Energizing.”_

Only a second had past with them visible, but most of the fighters were already beginning to descend upon them. She watched as the Bolri came up behind the fighters and decloaked. They opened fire long enough to get their attention then pulled away, taking some with them. The rest, however, kept coming.

She glanced at Gam. His fingers hovered tensely over the controls, but he couldn’t make a break for it as long as they were beaming people down. They’d gotten the process down to six minutes, four seconds, but that was as good as an eternity with incoming enemy ships and no shields. They would definitely be boarded.

Kee targeted the fighters with their ship’s one remaining phaser. It wouldn’t do much, but they could at least pick off a few of them.

“Waiting for something?” Ren asked her.

“There are so many of them, the targeting sensors are having a hard time locking on.” She said without looking up. With only a few successful target locks, she opened fire. The computer followed its instructions. The first fighter took a direct hit and fell back behind the others. The second barrel-rolled away from the energy blast. The third tried to veer away but was hit on its starboard thruster and it sideswiped its neighbor, sending them both into an emergency landing toward the planet.

Kee gave up on the sensors and just started shooting manually. Point, fire, point, fire. She landed a few hits, but only succeeded in delaying their advance by a few seconds.

Weapons fire from the fighters converged onto them, quickly punching holes in their hull.

“Port thrusters are down, shields are inoperable, multiple hull breaches, external communications are down.” Veeso read off the damage report even as it grew longer.

 _Cloak, don’t lose the cloak!_ She begged. An intense shutter vibrated through the ship as Gam struggled to steady the ship against the planet’s gravity with only one thruster.

She watched in near slow motion as one fighter discharged his weapons at point blank range directly into their remaining phaser emitter. Her panel warned her of a power backflow a split second before it flared up with a white-hot shower of sparks that knocked her against the back wall.

“I’m picking up multiple transporter signatures.” Veeso said.

Kee struggled to get her feet under her amid the heaving of the deck. There was only one reason for the Cardassians to board instead of just finishing them off. They wanted prisoners.  
The lights winked out to be replaced by dim emergency lighting, making the transporter effect almost blinding. She heard a Cardassian materializing behind her but couldn’t turn in time. The butt of his phaser was already in motion when he solidified and it connected with the side of her rib cage.

She found herself almost knocked over her warped and melted console, unable to get back to her feet fast enough. He suddenly froze in place and dropped to the floor to reveal Cadda with phaser in hand.

In the darkness, she could hear the others struggling with more Cardassians on the other side of the bridge. With pain slicing through her chest, she moved to help when another Cardassian beamed into her path. Kee lashed out with her elbow into his ear, causing him to double over. Cadda stepped in seamlessly, wrapping her hands around the back of his head and smashing his face into the divider between the ops and tactical consoles and the rest of the bridge.

 _Where is Veeso?_ Kee had the fragment of a moment to wonder.

The Cardassian staggered back with a bloodied face and despite the pain in her ribs side kicked him in the chest so that he writhed on the floor in pain.

Just then the main lights came back on.

“Transport complete.”

Cadda stepped over to the Cardassian on the floor and casually shot him in the chest. 

“Do we still have the cloak?” Ren asked, standing over his own defeated assailant.

“Yes.” Veeso said, rushing back to his console.

 _“Impulse engines coming back online now.”_ Joial said with noticeable sounds of battle in the background.

“See what you can do in engineering.” Kee told Cadda.

“Cloak and move us away.” Ren said.

Simultaneously, Veeso engaged the cloak and Gam moved them into a higher orbit and away from the drop site, but close enough to keep an eye on things. The remaining fighters searched for them in vain.

“Everybody okay?” Ren breathed.

Kee managed a nod, though she knew her bent stance said otherwise. Her ribs screamed at her, but she prepared to take action again when necessary. Someone still had to pick up the landing party if they survived. Knowing the Kohn-ma, there might not be many if any.

Without a working console, she checked over Veeso’s shoulder. The Bolri was nowhere to be found. They’d either been destroyed or their transponder was down. She hoped it was the latter. The Zan’pel was listing powerless in space, surrounded by smaller Cardassian ships.

Weapons or no, as long as the Krehu’s transporter was functional, they’d have to be the ones to extract the ground troops.

If there was anyone to extract.

Her heart seized for a split second at the sudden sound of Major Tahna’s voice through the comm.

_“…moving down into the sub-levels.”_

“Comms are back up.” Joial informed them unnecessarily.

They could only wait and listen to the landing party’s chatter as they descended into the depths of Central Command. The sounds of firefights, hand-to-hand combat and the distinctive sounds of people dying also came through the comm.

Kee swallowed hard. She hoped this was worth it, but the lump in the pit of her stomach had something to say about it. No matter what came next, they’d at least hit the Cardassians hard, but their two galor-class ships were gone, the Krehu had been crippled, one of their sister ships was lost and the Prophets only knew about the other two.

She found she didn’t have time to ponder the greater significance of what they’d done. An intense firefight sounded out over the comm followed by unintelligible shouting.

 _“Krehu! Are you still with us?”_ Tahna said.

“We’re here.” Ren said.

_“Prepare to beam us up in thirty seconds.”_

“Take us back down.”

As they headed back toward a hornets’ nest of enemy ships, sensors picked up a ship entering range. The sluggish and damaged computer took a few precious seconds to identify the ship as the Sictu.

“Our shields and weapons are down, Jersa. Can you cover us?” Ren said into the comm.

_“Not a problem. We’ll stay right with you.”_

The Sictu moved into position directly above the Krehu as they swung back in toward Central Command. The distance ticked down as fast as the seconds disappeared. The fighters that had been pummeling them before came at them with weapons charged, but the Sictu took the brunt of the attack.

“We’re in transporter range. I’m only picking up three Bajoran lifesigns.” Veeso said.

_“Energizing.”_

Without slowing down or changing direction, the two ships pulled up away from the planet and back out into space.

_“I have them. Major Tahna and Lieutenants Uwe and Zovin.”_

Alerra’s statement was punctuated by an explosion on the planet’s surface. The blast, which originated at the lowest level of Central Command, seemed like it would be contained within the heavily fortified building, but finally blew out onto the surface, taking out a large circle of the city with it.

“Cloak and let’s take one last sweep to locate the Bolri and we’ll get out of here.” Ren said.


	16. Chapter 16

Kee sat back in a chair in the dining corner of Rigg’s hotel room and took another bite of something the replicator called an ‘apple.’ It tasted a lot like the _pehas_ the Resistance members used to pick in the fall from an abandoned orchard. Pehas tasted better in her opinion, but it could just be because this apple was replicated.

She ate with her left hand to leave her right free to rest ready on top of her phaser. Her body tensed every time she heard footsteps in the hallway outside, but relaxed when they passed by.

Why couldn’t he have just kept his nose out of their business? They didn’t have any problem with him until his shenanigans messed up their plans. They would have been able to topple the Cardassian government completely and with less bloodshed if he hadn’t warned them. As if that wasn’t enough, he’d evacuated the Detapa Council members _himself_ and Starfleet was helping them set up a government in exile until they could retake their planet. The Bajorans had executed their plan perfectly, but because of _him_ it remained incomplete. 

Captain Jersa had had to break off pursuit of Riggs’ ship when he fled into the protection of some galaxy class Starfleet ship.

The area around the Cardassian system remained hostile but was primarily under Bajoran control. The remains of their military had been pushed into the farther reaches of their territory. And now the Federation had started strolling through the Bajorans’ hard-won territory with supply convoys. One had made it to Cardassia, but they’d attacked and damaged two severely enough that they had to turn back.

Another set of footsteps echoed through the hall and this time, she was positive it was him. She took another bite while she wrapped her fingers around the phaser’s grip and waited for him to open the lock that had taken her an unexpectedly long time to override. When he came around the corner where he could see her, he realized his mistake with a start.

He quickly regained his composure and she saw his eyes flic to her phaser for an instant. “How’d you find me?”

“Trade secret.” She said, taking another bite.

“Well, help yourself to the replicator.” He said sarcastically.

She shrugged, “I figured you’re already paying for the replicator use, so I might as well.”

“You’re here to kill me?” He said, suddenly serious.

She nodded slowly, tossing the apple core into the replicator with a thud.

“Are you going to?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” She said accurately. True, she’d been ordered to kill him, but she was sure she could come up with an excuse not to. The question was, did she _need_ to do it.

“If you need help coming up with a reason not to,” He said, seeming to read her mind like he’d done before. “I’m sure I could help you come up with something.”

“You interfered with our mission.” She stood up with her phaser in hand, starting to get tired of the game. “And because of that, people died.”

He was unphased by her sudden movement. “People were going to be dying the moment you went from defending your home to invading someone else’s.”

“The Cardassians don’t deserve your advocacy.”

“I’m not advocating for the Cardassians. I’m just trying to find a-”

“-peaceful solution. I remember.” She interrupted. “So far, your peaceful solution has put my people’s lives on the line.”

“And how many Cardassians were killed during your operation?”

She shrugged, keeping track of the number hadn’t entered her mind. “I don’t know. It would only have been three crews, some military bureaucrats and a couple dozen government officials if you had stayed out of it.”

He waited as though she had made his point for him.

“What? Those ships were made with Bajoran ore that was refined at a space station made from Bajoran ore and built by Bajoran slave labor. Those ships are _ours_. And as for the government officials, they’re the very ones responsible for continuing the Occupation.”

“So, you declare them guilty and execute them? Who does that sound like?”

The accusation pierced right through her. “We are nothing like the Cardassians.” She seethed.

“And what’s next?” He started to take a step toward her, but a gesture with her phaser stopped him. “Once you’re done with the Cardassians, will you go after the Federation? The Breen? The Klingons?”

“We have no argument with the Breen or the Klingons.” Though, admittedly, the Klingons did have an argument with them. “And if the Federation would stay out of our business like they did when they signed that treaty, we’d let them be.”

He held his hand up in acquiescence. “The treaty was a bad move.” He ventured a step closer and she didn’t stop him this time. “And if the Federation dissolved the treaty and created a new one with both Bajor and Cardassia under the new circumstances, would that be acceptable to your government?”

She narrowed her eyes, “You can’t make those kinds of promises.”

He inched closer, making her tense, he was now within arm’s reach. “I can’t. But I know my government and I know what they’d be willing to do to make peace.” Somehow, he’d managed to get even closer without her realizing it. “Then we’d be able to stop all of this.”

She realized she’d been holding her breath and let it out slowly, finding herself staring longingly at his lips, remembering how they felt, how they tasted. She swallowed hard and pulled herself out of it, reminded herself what he’d done. She took a half step back, he should die in repayment for the lives he’d cost her people. She raised her left hand and swung a punch that connected with his cheekbone.

He staggered back a few steps with his hand to his face. She stepped towards him, reaching out with her left again to grasp the front of his shirt. She twisted the fabric around her fist and pulled him towards her, unsure what she planned to do until she had her lips pressed against his.

It didn’t take him long to recover and he wrapped his arms around her to kiss deeper. Melting into the embrace, she reached back and tucked the phaser into her belt. Now free, her hand slipped up his chest to grasp the back of his neck and she ran her fingers through the short-cropped hair there.

This was wrong. She was there to kill him. But she knew she never would have. On one side she had her loyalty to her people and the slight against them by his people and her orders. On the other side, there was just _him_.

His tongue slid across hers and nothing else mattered.

* * *

When her senses came back to her, he was resting his head against hers, both gulping breaths.

She grabbed his jaw with both hands and kissed him deeply until they had to break to catch their breath.

Finally, he laid next to her.

“We should stop doing this.” She breathed.

“It’s very unprofessional.”

“What would your superiors say?” She chided him.

“And your captain?” He said with a laugh and she found herself giggling. When they’d composed themselves again, he added, “What needs to stop are the attacks on the convoys.”

She sat up and located her discarded shirt, pulling it over her shoulders but leaving the front open she turned to face him. “I was just going to tell you that the _convoys_ need to stop.”

“In just over a year, you’ve crippled the Cardassian economy, thrown their military into chaos by destroying their command center and sent their civilian leaders into hiding. We have a treaty with them, they asked for our help, we’re obligated to respond. Their people are starving.”

Her face darkened at the mention of the treaty, but she grabbed onto the other part of his statement. “So are ours! And for fifty years the Federation has turned its back on us, but the Cardassians get slightly uncomfortable and you send in the convoys!”

“It’s not fair, I admit that, but the mistakes of the past don’t mean we can just disregard our obligations now.” His fingers found the hem of her shirt, “There’s a way to move forward without continuing the violence.”

“Violence is all most of us have known our entire lives because of _them_.”

“And responding violence with violence _then_ was the only way to survive. But things have changed now. _You’ve_ changed them. And you can change them further by letting the relief supplies through.”

Her face relaxed and she stared down at her hands for a long time. Their lives would be so much better if they didn’t have to fight so hard, if they could live out their lives like their people once did, in peace and happy isolation, but the Cardassians had made that impossible. “No.” She felt an edge in her voice, “Not until we’ve made sure the Cardassians can never harm us again.”

She leaned over him as though to kiss him again and slipped her hand under the blankets to find her phaser. When she found it, she pressed it against his neck with her lips only a centimeter away from his. “And you’d be smart not to get in our way.” She kissed him again and slowly took the phaser away to rest it gently on the side table.

When their lips parted, he said, “I thought you didn’t want to do this anymore.”

“I said we ‘shouldn’t’, I never said we were going to stop.”

* * *

Jeff watched her softly closed eyes as she slept next to him. The detail didn’t escape him that she hadn’t turned her back toward him the whole night. And the fact that she could probably snatch her phaser off of the bedside table in an instant. He couldn’t help a tiny smile. What a woman.

_What a woman, indeed._ She was beyond stubborn, an outstanding example of her race in that way.

There had to be a way to get through to them. The Federation/Cardassian treaty was no minor slight and he couldn’t blame them for being bitter. If not for the stubbornness of her people, they’d have been whipped out by the Cardassians years ago. With a little help from Federation self-interest, he thought cynically. But now that same stubbornness was going to be their downfall.

The Cardassians never really stood a chance once the Bajorans got some momentum. And without Central Command, the once mighty Cardassian military fell into chaos. Cardassians were raised and trained their whole lives to bow to authority, to follow a superior unquestioningly. Without clear leadership, they were virtually paralyzed.

The Bajorans, on the other hand, the resistance-turned-militia was still little more than a group of independent cells held loosely together by a common goal. Unity was merely a necessity for survival. In that independence was both strength and weakness.

It baffled the Cardassians how they could have been beaten by these disorganized and undisciplined rebels. But it was exactly that reason that they’d been successful. The fact that they were accustomed to and even preferred working in their autonomous groups was their greatest weapon.

Kee stirred slightly in the light that had begun streaming through the window. If he could get through to her that peace was worth fighting for… but she had as much blood on her hands as the rest of them. Was peace even possible?

She woke suddenly with a start before she realized where she was. “Oh yeah.” She mumbled, rubbing her face. She pushed herself up into a seated position, still wearing only her shirt with just two of the clasps fastened. “I’ve got to get back to my ship.”

“Have something to eat before you go.”

She slid out of bed and began gathering her clothes. “This wasn’t a _date_.” She scoffed, but not hostilely. She pulled her pants up over her hips with a small hop, “Let me guess, you’re still hoping to convince me to argue for our leaders to negotiate with the Federation.”

“It couldn’t hurt.”

She looked up from tucking in her shirt. “It can when those leaders are former terrorists. To them, negotiation is what you do when you’ve been beaten.” Finally, she picked up her phaser and tucked it into the back of her pants.

“Where do they think they’re going to go from here? If they continue threatening the convoys, eventually ships will be destroyed on both sides. Hostilities will turn into war.”

“Even if I thought a treaty was the right thing for us, my government is run by people who believe Bajor must stand alone, no treaties, no alliances. They would rather go to war with the Federation than make peace with them.”

“Is that how _you_ feel?”

She bought herself time by sliding her arms into her jacket and carefully straightening it. “It doesn’t matter what I think. We have to remain unified or we’ll devolve into civil war and everything we’ve done in the last year… in all the decades since the first Resistance cell met will be for nothing.”

“Even if that unity means going to war with a power that has considerably greater resources than you have? Your people will go hungry even more than they did during the Occupation, your supplies will run out, your fleet will slowly disappear and lives will be lost just for the privilege of your own pride.”

She stared at him without responding, but he could see her turning his words over in her mind.

“The Federation doesn’t want that to happen, but if you force us to defend ourselves, we will have to.” He continued, hoping at least something he said would hit home.

Finally, she shook her head. “I’d appreciate it if you’d lay low for a while. At least until I can smooth over the whole, you know, not killing you thing.” With that she walked out. He listened to her footsteps in the hallway until she was too far away to hear them and wondered if it would be inappropriate to entreat her peoples’ Prophets for help.


	17. Chapter 17

Ren sauntered into the armory to find Kee sitting at the work table that was covered with stacks of phasers and phaser parts. She’d been back from her outing for two days and had hardly said a word to anyone.

There was no way she hadn’t seen him come in, but she didn’t look up from her work disassembling and repairing their hand phasers.

“Isn’t that Naren’s job?” He asked.

She sighed and added a finished phaser to a neat stack and picked up another. “I needed some time to think.”

He pulled a chair over from the wall and sat across from her. “Whatever your reason for letting the Starfleet operative live, I support you. I can talk to Command-”

She finally raised her head to look at him. “I can handle Tahna myself, I don’t need you to defend me.” She pried the outer casing of a phaser off with a pop, “That’s not what this is about, either.”

He sat back and waited. She’d say what was on her mind in her own time. Until then, he watched her manipulate the delicate innerworkings of the phaser with a tool held gently between her fingers. It seemed like decades ago that he’d taught her how to do that, never imagining they’d be out here in space together like this.

She snapped the case back on the weapon and set it in the stack to move on to the next one. “What are we doing?” She asked with a small shake of her head. “We defeated Bajor’s greatest enemy. Repaid half a century of abuse. We crushed them so hard that they had to go beg the Federation for help.” Her voice was sharp with the anger she’d summoned.

He remained silent, she had something to work out and didn’t need him interrupting.

“How ever we’ve each justified to ourselves what we did, we’ve made them pay. We took our revenge. And now what?” Her eyes flicked to his for an instant then back to her work. “Now we go up against the Federation because of some offense that was technically within their legal right?”

She set the phaser down on the stack harder than she had the others and leaned her elbows on the table.

He finally jumped in. “You know what they say, ‘revenge shoots at others but hits itself, and obstinacy-”

“-is the dust that blinds all eyes.’ I suppose it’s true.” She picked up the next phaser. “And here we are running around picking fights while back home people are fighting famines and droughts and diseases that are curable with Federation technology.” She set the phaser down along with the tool without finishing it. “The people we’ve sworn to protect are suffering because we’ve decided the Federation is our enemy.”

“You no longer think they are?” He asked carefully. This was dangerous territory. The solidarity of the militia was precarious, especially now that they didn’t have the Cardassians to fixate on anymore.

She buried her head in her hands, digging her fingers into her hair. “I don’t know.” She mumbled, then lifted her head back up to look at him. “But is dogged adherence to a grudge worth so much?”

 _Is it?_ Those in power thought so and to defy them was to invite civil war. The question was, was that worth so much? He didn’t have an answer. To continue going along with a course that could lead to their destruction… was it strategy or cowardice? Were they stuck in a no-win scenario with no way to change course?

He was a soldier with no way, or no right to answer those questions on behalf of all of their people. And the slightest misstep could tip the delicate equilibrium.

The question continued to hang in the air between them until a voice behind him broke the spell.

“I’m glad I found both of you.” Joial said, standing only part way in the doorway. “The ship-mounted phasers we salvaged are installed and ready for testing.”

“We’ll be right there.” Ren said, then reached across the table to take Kee’s hand and said to her, “I don’t disagree with you, but don’t talk to anybody else about this just yet.”

“Of course.” She said, standing up to walk with him to engineering.

* * *

Ren’s caution had been unnecessary. The crew was with them all the way. All the way to where was still uncertain, but they’d get there together.

Kee walked with him toward the transporter room to meet their guest. Colonel Shakaar’s popularity with the people and opposition to continued hostilities toward the Cardassians had been a liability to First Minister Jaro and General Krim. The Shakaar cell had been split apart, assigned to separate postings and Shakaar himself had been practically exiled way out here past the Badlands near the Incaria system. Unable to fight it without risking a split, he’d cooperated and bided his time with the patience he was known for.

The Krehu, being under scrutiny because of Kee’s infraction, couldn’t risk being seen meeting with the Jeleah. They’d come in under cloak after having disabled their transponder, including the anti-tamper failsafe that Joial had discovered lurking in the device.

Even now, Gam was positioning them close enough to their sister ship that when they decloaked, they would look like a sensor distortion to anyone happening by.

Kee and Ren turned the corner into the transporter room.

“We’re in position and Jeleah has signaled they’re ready.” Alerra said.

“Decloak and energize.” Ren said.

Two figures began to materialize on the platform and Kee’s first thought was tall, which was only reinforced when they solidified and stepped down and he still towered over her. A small part of her mind automatically assessed whether she could take him if necessary and she gave herself maybe at ninety percent chance.

He and his companion glanced up together when the lights dimmed, indicating they’d cloaked.

“Must take a while to get used to that.” Shakaar said in a heavy Dakur farmer’s accent.

“A few weeks.” Ren agreed. “It’s good to see you again.” He said, placing his hand out to grasp Shakaar’s forearm in greeting.

She hadn’t been aware they’d met before, but shouldn’t have been surprised, Dakur wasn’t far from their native province and Ren rarely spoke of his early Resistance life.

Ren indicated Kee, “This is my first officer and head of tactical, Commander Norv.”

“It’s a pleasure.” He said with a smile that erased the language portion of her brain.

“Likewise.” She managed to say with as much competence as she could muster.

“This is my first officer, Dirci.” He said, introducing his companion who only nodded his head in greeting.

Ren led them back into the corridor towards the mess hall. They had to step around a pair of legs sticking out of an open maintenance hatch. Based on the size of the boots and the specific variety of curses coming from inside, she was fairly certain it was Fenja.

“Must have been some battle.” Shakaar mused as he stepped around the legs.

“We took a pretty hard hit, lost some good crews.” Ren agreed as they filed into the empty mess hall.

“I had some people onboard the Dralin when it went down.”

“Hopefully their sacrifice will put the Cardassians in a mood to make some agreements.”

“Is that what you wanted to meet about?” Shakaar said, sitting at a table across from Ren.

Kee and Dirci each sat next to their captains.

“Yes and no.” Ren said. “It’s part of the end result that I think we want to bring about, but we have a long way to go before we get there.”

“Jaro will never be willing to make peace with the Cardassians or the Federation.” Shakaar offered.

“I know.” Ren said grimly. “That’s what we have to deal with first.”

“A coup would trigger a civil war.” Dirci jumped in.

“We know. And that’s the last thing any of us want.”

Kee broke in then, “What we need to do is bring about a legal transition of power while interrupting Jaro’s military backing.”

Shakaar nodded thoughtfully with his eyes on his folded hands. “My people are spread across much of the militia. I can make some discrete inquiries. Contact them via a method only our cell ever used. Find out how much support Jaro has with the rest of the fleet at this point.”

“What about the civilians?” Dirci said. “In order to legally remove Jaro from office, we’d need a majority of civilians to vote against him and right now they believe he’s the only one keeping them safe from the Federation.”

“I may have a way to turn public opinion in favor of the Federation.” Kee said.

“We’ll need someone to run against Jaro.” Dirci added.

“We will.” Ren agreed. “Someone we can trust to do what’s best for Bajor. Someone who’s name is already recognized favorably by the people and the military. Someone experienced in a leadership role.”

Shakaar looked up to find all three of them watching him. “No.” He immediately shook his head. “I’ve been waiting all my life to be able to go back home to my family’s land and live in peace.”

“The people know you and trust you.”

“I’m not a politician.” He argued.

“You’re the leader of the cell that liberated Gallitep. That matters to the people and to the members of the militia.”

He shook his head again. “No. I’ve-” He paused and nodded to Dirci, “-been preparing to resign, go home and take up farming again.”

Dirci gave no indication of surprise, they must have discussed it previously.

Shakaar stood up with finality. “I’ll do whatever else you need until then. But you’ll have to find someone else to lead.” With that he sauntered out with Dirci by his side. It would be unnecessary for them to be escorted back to the transporter room, their ship was nearly identical to the Krehu.

“Well, it could have gone _worse_.” Ren muttered.

Kee stared at the empty doorway without responding. Anyone else who had that much pull with the people was firmly rooted on Jaro’s side. If Shakaar couldn’t be persuaded to change his mind, they might be able to find somebody else, but winning over the people would be an uphill battle.

“What’s this idea you have about the Federation?” He asked finally.

“I’ll need someone to come with me.” She began.


	18. Chapter 18

“Are you sure he’s going to show?” Cadda asked, leaning against the wall of a building.

It had taken no small effort to track down Riggs again. Kee had asked him to lay low for a while, so she couldn’t complain. She’d finally found him back on Nivoch and made her request.

If Kee could be considered impatient, Cadda was downright restless when it came to waiting. She glanced down the alley in both directions toward the busy streets on either end.

“Relax. It’s not like this is a weapons deal or information exchange. It’s not even illegal.”

“I’m relaxed.” She insisted. “I’m just concerned about having been followed.”

“Tahna’s many things, but subtle is not one of them. We weren’t followed.”

A figure slipped out of the crowd and into the alley. It was too dark to make out his features, but she recognized his gait and his build, it was him. When the light finally hit his face, her heart skipped a little bit and she scolded herself for being so easily influenced.

“Thanks for coming.” She said with her most impersonal expression she could manage, trying to avoid his dark, earnest eyes.

He handed her a small container. “You know Federation medical supplies are freely available.”

She cracked open the case to see a Starfleet-type hypospray and a series of medicinal vials inside. “I know, but we can’t make those kinds of requests right now.”

“This amount will only treat a small part of your population.” He warned.

“I know, but if we can show how the Federation is willing and able to help with something as ubiquitous as the temecklian virus, even in a small area, that’ll give us a place to start.” She handed the case to Cadda who slipped it into her satchel.

He bit his lip thoughtfully which only made her want him even more, “Just be careful.”

She began to back toward the other end of the alley while still facing him. “Hey, I’m always careful.”

“No…” He shook his head, “No, that doesn’t sound right.”

Kee couldn’t help a giggle as she turned to follow Cadda away.

As soon as they were out of range, Cadda slowed her pace and turned toward her. “You had sex with him!”

“What?” She feigned innocence.

“You heard what I said. You had sex with him. Didn’t you?”

“That’s… ridiculous.” She said, grasping to somehow deflect without lying.

“Yes, it is, but it’s true isn’t it?”

“I-” She finally gave in, “yes. But you can’t tell _anyone_.” She jabbed a finger at her. “I cannot risk looking like I’ve been compromised.”

She stopped and crossed her arms over her chest, “Have you?”

“What? Been compromised?” She said incredulously. “Cadda.” When she didn’t respond, she gave her what she was waiting for, “No, I haven’t been compromised. My loyalties lie with Bajor and Bajor alone.”

“And what about him? Why is he so willing to help us? What’s he in this for?”

“Believe it or not, that’s the way the Federation is, especially the Starfleet types. They really do just want to make peace between everybody.” She said with a roll to her eyes.

“Everybody’s got an agenda.”

“Not always a hidden one. He says he and his superiors want peace and I believe him.”

“He’s the one that informed the Cardassians of our plans.”

“He did what he thought was right. That doesn’t mean we have to agree-” She stopped in her tracks just before they reached the street and pulled Cadda back into the shadows.

They pressed themselves against the wall while a pair of Klingons she recognized as crewmembers from the ta’So passed by in the crowd. The two women exchanged glances, their argument forgotten for the moment. They would have to find their way off of this planet without running into trouble.

* * *

The two wound their way through the crowd. Their transportation, the Ferengi ship Nupax was visible in the landing area not far away. If only they could get to it without being spotted by the Klingons.

“How long until Daemon Krem gets back to his ship?” She asked.

“Less than an hour.” Cadda said, “And that was just an estimate.”

If they didn’t get back before Krem returned from his auction, their deal with his cargo supervisor would be off. It would have been a simple matter to get there on time if not for having to avoid these Klingons.

“I can’t believe you had sex with him.” Cadda muttered after a long while, but without the combative tone she’d had before.

“What’s so unbelievable about it? He’s very attractive. You offered to do it yourself almost a year ago just based off of a picture.”

“Yeah, but that’s me.”

Kee halfway turned toward her while keeping watch out for the enemy.

“I’m a letch.” She explained. “That’s expected from me. But you!”  
“What?”

“You’re… perfect.”

Finally, Kee had to stop and face her for a moment. “Have you forgotten who messed up during the raid on that data storage compound just outside of Aaril city and killed the whole op?”

“I’m not talking about making a mistake, I mean, you’re… perfect. Reliable, consistent, predictable.”

Kee turned away with a huff and kept walking.

“Not like that.” Cadda hurried to keep up with her. “Predictable in a good way… we’ll go back to ‘reliable’. I like that about you, everybody does.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“When’s the last time you disobeyed an order?”

Kee finally slowed her pace, still watching for Kligons. She had to search her memory for the answer to Cadda’s question. “That time I ended up with the scar on my back.”

“Exactly! That was six years ago!”

“So, I’m not allowed to break the rules like everybody else?”

“No, you totally can. I like it.”

“Ten minutes ago, you were grilling me about whether this meant I was compromised, and now you’re encouraging it?”

“I was not ‘grilling’ you, I asked a reasonable question and this is me accepting your answer.” She gestured with both hands from her chest outward. “… then encouraging it.” She said with a smirk.

Kee only rolled her eyes and kept weaving through.

With that out of her system, Cadda fell silent again until she said, “So, what are Humans like?”

She couldn’t help a tug at the corner of her lips, “Pretty much like us.” Cadda actually seemed a little disappointed, so she added, “Hairier, though.”

She drew back with a look of wordless disgust.

“I kind’a like it.” She shrugged, but then up ahead she spotted distinctive Klingon forehead ridges above the heads of the mass of people.

Cadda grasped onto Kee’s arm at the same moment. They searched for a way out of his path, but they were in between shop entrances, right up against a wall on one side and a dense cluster of people on the other side.

Without any warning, Cadda shoved her up against the building and pressed herself close with their heads together and faces buried in each other’s hair. By then the Klingon was close enough that Kee could see that he was wearing the emblem of the ta’So on his uniform, so she played along as though they were in the middle of something intimate.

He approached their position without a second glance at them. As she watched through the strands of Cadda’s hair, he passed by, brushing against them. But then in near slow motion, she saw someone at the edge of the crowd trip and fall towards the Klingon, ramming into him and pushing him against Cadda’s back. The breath was knocked out of Kee’s lungs as their bodies were pressed together.

They prepared to fight or bolt while the Klingon picked himself up, but to her relief, he turned on the person that had knocked into him, rearing up to his full, intimidating height. Kee was not about to stick around, so the two of them slipped back into a gap in the crowd before the ruckus began.

She ducked and zigzagged between people with Cadda on her heels, wanting to put as much distance between them and the aggravated Klingon as possible. The Nupax was still in view, but with an empty courtyard between them and this entrance to the landing port, they would be spotted easily. They’d have to circle around to the busier entrance on the other side.

“Up ahead.” Cadda breathed urgently.

Another Klingon making his way through the crowd. This time they had an escape route, a dark alley, so they dashed into it. The street at the other end of the alley was less busy, but there was a chance there would be fewer Klingons there.  
Side-by-side, they sprinted through the darkness, hoping there weren’t any potholes in their path.

Up ahead where they alley broke out into the street, a large figure stepped into view and the women skidded to a halt. The silhouetted figure was broad and tall with a mass of hair. A Klingon for sure. But when they tried to turn to make a break for the other direction, they found another Klingon there.

Kee reached behind her as she spun back around to face the first one and pulled out her phaser, but he was too fast. He locked a huge hand around her wrist and twisted the phaser out of her grip. She heard a scuffle behind her as he shoved her against the wall with his forearm pressed hard against her throat, restricting her air supply. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that his companion had Cadda pinned on the ground with his boot on her chest.

He leaned close to her face so that they were almost touching. “You will pay for stealing from us.”

He glared into her with anger and fury, but not contempt and loathing like she’d seen in the eyes of Cardassians. This attack was about what she did, not what she was, and she could respect that, at least. Maybe it meant he could be reasoned with.  
She tried to speak but couldn’t. When he let up the pressure on her throat she sucked a breath of air into her lungs. She put on her best show. “We regret the dishonorable actions we took.” She grasped at the most Klingon phrasing she could manage. “What can we do to satisfy your honor.”

He looked taken aback for a moment, expecting a different response, no doubt, but he recovered quickly. “Die.” He punctuated his statement with the tip of his knife pressed against her cheek.

She managed a small scoff. “Ambushing us in an alley and killing us like some mercenaries doesn’t sound honorable to me, does it to you Cadda?”

“Nope.” She wheezed.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “A gik’tal match, then.” He conceded. “Give you a fair chance, but you will still die.”

In a fair match she thought she might be able to take him on. And at least it would get them off of her crew’s back so they could do what they needed to do. “I accept.”

“Kee!” Cadda objected.

“But first, people are dying on our home world. In that bag,” she gestured as best she could to the satchel laying on the ground, “is medication that is needed there. Can you give us the chance to deliver it first?”

“More likely you wish to have a chance to run away and hide again.”

“No, please, you have my word that I will return at a designated time to do as you ask. But we must deliver this medication.”

He turned to his companion and nodded his head toward the satchel. Without letting Cadda up, the other Klingon bent down to pick it up. He pulled out the Federation case and examined the contents.

For a moment, Kee held her breath. A Cardassian could be expected to smash the precious contents out of spite, but these weren’t Cardassians. Finally, he nodded to the one holding her against the wall.

“You will return to this system in two weeks for your captain to compete in the gik’tal. Or we will hunt you down and execute your entire crew.”

“No, not him, me. It was my idea to steal the cloak, I led the boarding party. I will be the one to make amends.”

“Very well. Two weeks.” He finally released her and turned to leave.

“Hey!” She called to him, holding out her hand expectedly and gesturing to her phaser that was tucked in his belt.

He glared at her for a full two breaths before finally handing it over to her. With that he and his companion marched back into the main street.

“You know Ren is never going to agree to that.” Cadda said when they were out of earshot, brushing the dirt off of her clothes.

“One problem at a time.”


	19. Chapter 19

Something told Jeff that she was going to get herself into trouble. She cared too much about her people to tear them apart with an attempted coup. And sneaking around with medical supplies… that told him that whatever she was doing she was worried about her superiors finding out.

He hurried back to his hotel room to gather his things.

* * *

The Nupax deposited them on the old Terok Nor, renamed Kejal. Kee would have liked the opportunity to stretch her legs and see the station after a long trip stuck in a cramped cargo bay, but they couldn’t risk being spotted before they’d done what they came to do. Instead, they stowed away on a civilian transport that would be making a stop near their home province of Joralla.

As Cadda and Kee continued down the main street of what had once been the refugee camp Kee had grown up in, if one could call a bare, muddy stretch a street. She couldn’t help but catch how little it had changed. The Cardassians were gone, but people still lived in the same squalor she remembered. With nowhere else to go and no resources that the government could provide, they were stuck little better off than they had been during the Occupation.

She tried to keep a low profile, but they were out of place here. They were clean, healthy, confident. These people were none of those things. She just wanted to slip in and slip out without bumping into anybody she knew, but looks of recognition fell onto the faces of many she passed.

Finally, they approached the cluster of buildings that had once been the Cardassians’ administrative center. After the outbreak of temecklian virus began, one of the buildings had been turned into a ward for the sick in an attempt to quarantine them from the rest of the residents.

They paused at the entrance, if what Riggs had given her wasn’t effective, they’d be exposed to the deadly virus. A carrier was contagious long before they showed symptoms, they’d end up spreading it to their ship or other places on Bajor. With an uncertain glance at Cadda, they went through the door, noting that it didn’t even have a sanitizing field around it.

The entry room was separated from the ward, but the sounds of dying patients filled the room. That, and the unmistakable smell of bodily waste that was associated with this sickness. Forcing herself to continue breathing, she pushed on through the next door that would take them into the sick room.

The sounds of groaning were louder here, the smell more intense, almost overwhelming. She tried not to get distracted by the rows of miserable sick and visually scanned the long room for anyone standing and each of those faces for the one she was looking for.

She tapped Cadda on the shoulder with the back of her hand to get her attention and headed forward. The woman had finished with a patient and was preparing to move on when Kee approached. “Mother?”

Jora looked up with a start, it had been well over a year since they’d seen each other. “Keedra!” She stepped forward as though to embrace her, but stopped herself, she’d been in direct contact with contagious patients. “What are you doing here? You’ll get sick.”

“We have something, and I wanted to give it to someone I know I can trust.” She turned to take the case that Cadda handed her and passed it to her mother.

“What is this?” She asked as she opened it.

Kee kept her voice down, “It’s the cure.” She pointed to the first row of vials, “the green labels are the vaccine and the blue labels are the treatment.”

She stared at Kee open-mouthed for a long moment. She didn’t have to ask where it came from, the design was clearly Federation. “Are you sure it’s safe? They say the Federation wants to invade like the Cardassians did.”  
Kee shook her head. “That’s Jaro and the Kohn-Ma’s propaganda. I trust the person who gave this to me, he wants to help.”

She inserted the first vial into the hypospray and gripped it protectively, “We’ll have to test it…” She trailed off as she glanced over the patients under her care. Finally, she started toward one who looked worse than the rest.  
She leaned over him and spoke softly, “I have something that might make you feel better. Is it okay if I try?”

The man only nodded weakly, but it was permission enough. She concealed the hypospray in her hand and pressed it against his neck, then tucked it into her pocket.

Kee held her breath while her mother scanned him. Jora stood stone still with the tricorder in her hand long enough that Kee thought maybe it hadn’t worked. But, finally, she let out a breath that she too had been holding and gave her daughter a guarded smile. “The virus is being eliminated.” She whispered hopefully. “How much of this do you have?”

“That’s it.” Kee said. “For now. There should be enough to treat everyone here but use all of it right away or you’ll have chaos with people trying to get to it. Then once people start getting better, tell everyone it came from the Federation.”

“When can we get more?”

“That all depends on Jaro. There’s no way he’ll be willing to ask the Federation for help, but we’re working on it.”

She glanced inside the case again, pointing out two missing vials, one of each kind. “Where did these go?”

“I’m taking them to someone who may be able to duplicate them. Just in case we’re unable to get Federation help.”

She nodded her understanding and inserted one of the green vials into the hypospray. “Come here. I can’t have you walk out of here and spread the virus.” She dosed each of them, then herself. “I’ll inoculate the medical staff first.” She said, already walking away.

“Nervous about our next stop? Cadda said.

Kee breathed out before answering and started toward the door. “A little. I’ve only seen him once since it happened.”

“He doesn’t blame you.” She said, “In fact, the way he talks about it, you were the hero.”

“Some hero.” She muttered as they reached the outside and breathed in a lungful of fresh air.

* * *

Ren silenced the notification on the panel next to his captain’s chair. It was the third time in the last hour General Krim had tried hailing them. The Krehu was supposed to have met up with the Sictu and a handful of other ships to form a small armada to attack the Federation convoy heading to Cardassia. That was yesterday. With only one cloak ship, the Sictu, there was no way they’d be able to take on those Federation ships. Krim and Tahna had to be hopping mad. Jaro would be ‘displeased’, which was about as furious as one could expect out of the seasoned politician.

Another alert blinked at him and he was about to cancel it when he saw that it was a specific encryption type. “I’ll take this in my office.” He said. “Veeso, you have the bridge.”

He stepped quickly off of the bridge into his office and input the code to accept the transmission.

Shakaar’s image appeared before him and he started speaking before Ren could. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this.” He sighed heavily. “I’ll do it.”

“Excellent. You’re sure you’re willing to do this?” They couldn’t afford to put forth a candidate who wasn’t completely committed, but he was certain Shakaar wouldn’t have agreed if that were so.

“I just turned in my resignation a few minutes ago. I’ve given almost my entire life to Bajor, what’s another six years?”

“We’ll rendezvous with your ship and take you to Bajor ourselves.” He said, typing in the coordinates to send to him.

He sighed again with uncertainty, “I hope this isn’t going to blow up in our faces.”

Ren only chuckled, “I’ve found myself saying the same thing again and again ever since we first thought about taking the cloaking device from the Klingons.”

Shakaar only shook his head, “I’ll meet you soon.” With that he cut off the channel.

Ren sat back, feeling a lot better than he had a few minutes ago. With a candidate like Shakaar to present to the Bajoran people, they might just have a chance.


	20. Chapter 20

Kee was not typically timid, but she hesitated before opening the door before them. Cadda had known her long enough to be able to read the subtle fragments of uncertainty she let slip. She couldn’t blame her, she was sure her stomach would be in knots after what had happened to him.

Kee and Ilwea had been imprisoned in an interrogation center together almost two years earlier. They’d tortured him in front of her for information she possessed, but because she refused to give it to them, he ended up losing the use of his arms and legs. Cadda didn’t even want to imagine what they’d actually done to him, but neither of them were the same after that.

He’d lived out the rest of the Occupation in a safe house, crippled. Once he’d been able to acquire prosthetics, he began using his experience as a Resistance medic at the underfunded Drina Medical Research Center.

Inside, they checked a directory for his name and made their way to his office.

“Kee! Cadda!” He greeted them with a warm smile from behind a desk.

Despite her earlier hesitation, Kee stepped around the desk to kneel down on one knee for an embrace. Cadda eyed the clumsy-looking prosthetics that wrapped around Kee’s back until she pulled away.

“What brings you here?”

Kee held out her hand with the two hypospray vials in the palm. “I need you to see if you can replicate these.”

“What are they?” He asked, carefully taking them from her and setting them in a tray on his desk.

“The cure and the vaccine for the temecklian virus.”

His eyes snapped back to the vials, “You should have taken this to the medical center in the capitol.”

“I need it to be done by someone I trust.”

“Why?” He said cautiously.

“It’s from the Federation.” She said, lowing her voice as though someone could hear through the closed door. “I’m concerned what might happen to them if anyone who’s, ah, unfriendly to the Federation gets involved.”

“What makes you think that’s not me?” He said darkly. “In fact, I thought you felt that way.”

“I did, but I realize now that they’re not our enemy.”

“Then who is?”

She pursed her lips together with a small sigh, “Can you do it?”

“I don’t know.” He said, dropping the issue, what mattered was getting the virus under control no matter where the cure came from. “We don’t have a lot of resources, but I may be able to call in some favors.”

“Do it carefully. I’d hate for this to blow back on you.” She gave his prosthetic hand a squeeze and stood to leave.

“Wait. What do you mean ‘this’?”

“Just be careful.” She told him at the door.

“You too.” He said, accepting the fact that she wasn’t going to elaborate.

* * *

“Where are they?!” Krim demanded.

“We have half the fleet out there looking for them, but with their transponder disabled, there’s no way to locate them until they decloak.” Tahna said.

“Then we need to determine their next move. Predict where they’ll show up.”

Tahna took a breath to speak but the door chime interrupted him.

“Come.” Krim said gruffly.

An aid slipped into the room to hand him a padd. “I thought you should see this right away.”

Krim read the message with a deepening furrow to his brow. “Captain Shakaar has resigned from the militia.”

Tahna’s mind raced through the tactical possibilities of the news. A resignation from Shakaar had been expected for a long time. His displeasure with military life was no secret. Nor was his opposition to continued aggression. But why now? Was it a coincidence or did it have something to do with the disappearance of the Krehu, and its first officer’s involvement with that Starfleet operative?

“Order the Jeleah to rendezvous with the Okaw. And find out if the Jeleah has had any contact with the Krehu.” Krim told the aid and turned back to Tahna as soon as she’d left. “Contact Okaw. Tell Captain Hedar to delay the Jeleah until further notice. If they’re up to something, I don’t want him anywhere near Bajor.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will inform Jaro. And I want the Krehu found. By any means necessary.”

“Yes, sir.” Tahna said again, already running through the list of no-so-legal and flat-out illegal methods he could employ to fulfill Krim’s mandate.


	21. Chapter 21

Kee enjoyed a meal of non-replicated food for the first time since they’d left Bajor immediately after the Withdrawal. And, by the looks of it, Cadda was enjoying herself as well. This area was still far from economic recovery and the portions were small, but the food was delicious.

She counted out her money and set it on their little table in the back corner when a pair of militia officers entered the establishment. They walked slowly past several empty tables, telling her that they were not here to eat.

Cadda glanced noticeably at the door to the kitchen, but they couldn’t make it without being spotted. The last thing they wanted to do was endanger a bunch of civilians, so they waited to be identified.

The two officers approached as soon as they saw them, and Kee recognized them as Kohn-ma, which sent a chill down her spine. One she knew by name, Tajak, the other only by face. “Commander Norvish Keedra and Lieutenant Cadda,” He began, Cadda had dropped her family name when they disowned her for joining the Resistance, so no one, even Kee, knew what it had been. “Come with us, you’re under arrest.”

“On what charges?” Kee demanded.

“Conspiracy to overthrow the government.”

Kee glanced at Cadda, she was tense and ready for whatever Kee decided to do, but so where these officers. Finally, she stood up slowly and walked toward the door. She’d be better off making a stand out there away from civilians.

Just as the foursome reached the door, she could hear Tajak take out a pair of restraints. Before he could slap them onto her wrists, she backed up and body slammed him back into the restaurant and saw Cadda bolt into action, too.

They’d only made it two steps into a dash away from the establishment when two more Kohn-ma stepped into their way.

The one on Kee’s side took a swing at her, she blocked and punched him in the jaw. With the follow-through to that movement, she grabbed the inside of his elbow and the front of his shirt and threw him to the ground.

Tajak rushed up to her with a wide punch. She ducked to avoid it, but too late, she realized he still had the restraints in his other hand and wrapped one side tight around her wrist.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Cadda grappling with her two opponents. Hitting one in the nose, knocking the other to the ground, throwing the first one over her shoulder. But that was all she could see before Tajak yanked her toward him, trying to get a grip on her other wrist.

Instead, Kee reached for his collar with her hand that was already in the restraint, grabbed him and pulled him toward her while she swung a punch that connected with his cheek. She followed it with a knee to the stomach, but as he stumbled he pulled her to the ground with him and rolled so that he ended up on top, straddling her midsection.

With his leverage, he was able to pin her arms down while his companion walked calmly over to her. The last thing she saw was the butt of a phaser rifle coming at her face, then an instant of pain when it hit and blackness closed around her while she still heard the fading sounds of Cadda’s fight.

* * *

After a quick stop at a shop on Regulon IV to pick up a polymer nose piece to be able to blend in on Bajor, Jeff stowed away on a Xepolite cargo ship making a stop at the old Cardassian space station. He’d have preferred to undergo cosmetic surgery, but there was no time. The trip itself had taken long enough.

He ‘borrowed’ a maintenance uniform and managed to get lost among the throng of workers beaming to and from the planet.

Once there, he found that Kee had been busy. Public places were full of conversations about the cure for the virus plaguing their planet and where it had come from. He did his part to subtly shift an opinion here and there in favor of the Federation, but that wasn’t what he was there for.

She was, naturally, nowhere to be found. Even if he’d had intimate knowledge of the planet and the region she could be expected to hole up in, he doubted he’d be able to find her easily.

With the rate at which the news about the cure had spread, he guessed the current regime would be on the lookout, so he decided he’d let them do the work for him. If she was being tailed or had already been caught, someone somewhere would have a record of it. It was only a matter of hacking the right system and listening to the right communications.


	22. Chapter 22

Consciousness trickled into Kee’s mind and for an instant, the fight instinct that remained from before urged her to resist only to find her arms restrained. As her mind cleared, she found that her wrists were strapped securely to a chair. A metal chair that was bolted to the floor in a wide room with a light above her.

She immediately recognized it as an interrogation room. But from what she could see of the edges of the room, it was a wreck, with smashed consoles and missing machinery. Whatever hadn’t been destroyed when the Cardassians left had probably been looted by the locals who were struggling to survive.

A figure slowly stepped out of the shadow and she recognized him as First Minister Jaro. “Welcome back.” He said pleasantly.

Cadda. Where was Cadda? She wondered. Hopefully they were holding her somewhere in the same facility and they hadn’t been separated.

“I understand you’ve caused quite the commotion in your home province.” He said without her responding to his disingenuous greeting. “It was irresponsible of you to provide such a small amount of a cure for a disease affecting so many people.”

Again, she ignored his scold.

“Did you really believe you could turn public opinion against me with such a stunt?”

“I wanted to show people that friendship with the Federation can improve their lives despite what your fearmongering propaganda tries to convince them.”

“What you are doing is telling an already vulnerable population that all of their problems can be solved by trading one oppressor for another. There are a few of us who are old enough to remember when the Occupation began. It started out very friendly with the Cardassians wanting only to open a trade agreement with us. Our leaders were naive and made a few too many concessions. Before anyone could stop it, our world had been annexed and you are fully aware of the horrors that followed.”

“The Federation isn’t like the Cardassians.”

“Is that what your Starfleet operative friend has been telling you?” He said in a tone that made her feel like a scolded child. “And you’re all too willing to play the whore, selling yourself to him and our people to the Federation?”

The casualness with which he made the accusation cut right through her and she found nothing to say in her defense.

He continued with a showy sigh, “What I need from you is what your captain’s plans are and where I can find your ship.”

She pursed her lips and sat back in the chair, trying to appear to comfortably recline when the chair was anything but.

“No one despises the Cardassians more than I, but we did learn a few things from them. Like how to encourage people to talk.”

She only stared into the empty space next to him.

“Very well. I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Colonel Tahna. I, however, must go clean up the mess you’ve made.”

Jaro walked out as Tahna walked in from another direction with something in his hand.

“It didn’t take you long to start behaving like a Cardassian.” She sneered as he approached.

“It didn’t take you long to go begging the Federation for help.”

He reached up to her neck and she felt the cold twinge of a hypospray against her skin. She expected a rush of nausea or dizziness but felt nothing.

“Wondering what this is, aren’t you?” He set the hypospray down on a table but still had something else in his hand. “I’m sure you’ve figured out by now what this place used to be. But this specific room had been used exclusively for experimental interrogation techniques. There’s not much of anything usable left, but I was able to find this.” He held up a control pad not unlike others she’d seen and leaned casually against the table. “I injected a dose of nanites into your blood. They should be disbursed by now.”

He calmly pressed a key on the pad and the tips of her fingers burned like she’d touched a hot cooking surface. A small noise of alarm escaped her lips before she clamped down on it. Then he switched it off.

He walked right up to her and pressed his hands down on her forearms. The control pad in his hand pressed hard against the bone of her arm. He leaned his face in close to hers, “According to the log, the nanites can be programmed to liquify a body over the course of three days before the subject dies. I have another quantity of these set aside for your Federation friend. I will find him.”

Her mind went, not to Riggs, but to the test subjects recorded in that log and the coldness with which Tahna spoke about them.

“Your little attempted coup will fail whether you cooperate or not, so you might as well make it easier on yourself.”

She stared into his eyes with the tip of his nose almost touching hers. “No, you will fail. The people are beginning to see through Jaro’s lies about the Federation and for the first time in their lives, they’ll have a chance to make an informed decision about their future. You and I have been out there picking fights that do nothing to secure Bajor’s safety while down here they’re dealing with real problems. Diseases, hunger, lack of shelter. Almost as many people are dying now as when the Cardassians were still here. And for what? Our pride? Our distrust? Our fear?”

“They’ll yield our world back into oppressive hands for some medicine and food!” He sneered and stepped away from her.

“This isn’t about the Federation, this is about us!” She shouted back. “The scars of the Occupation are fresh on the people and the planet, but they go deeper than what’s visible. The bottom line is that because of fifty years of occupation, we’re scared. We’re scared of the future. We’re scared to lose what little we have. We’re just scared, period. And your kind is the most scared of all of us.”

The words had barely left her mouth when he hit a key on his control pad and pain shot through her body as though all of her bones were being crushed. A scream escaped her throat and she was vaguely aware of her arms straining against the bonds.

When it finally ended he was calmly standing before her again. “Tell me where the Krehu is.”

“I don’t know.” She breathed. “The transponder is turned off.”

“You and I both know every cell has their own method of contacting each other. You wouldn’t have left the ship without a way to communicate with them.”

She stared into him with half-lidded eyes. “You’re absolutely right.” She said defiantly.

He pressed the control and she screamed again.

* * *

“Sir, I might have something odd regarding the Jeleah.” Opi said as she crossed the room to Krim’s desk and handed him a padd.

After he had a chance to study the image for a moment, she elaborated. “This was taken from a sensor post near the Incaria system on long range sensors fifteen days ago. It looks like a sensor distortion-”

“-but it could be an identical ship at very close range decloaking for a few seconds.”

“Exactly. The sensor resolution isn’t high enough to tell if it’s just an echo or actually a different ship, but it happened again just a few minutes later.”

“Long enough for someone to beam over for a short meeting then back.”

She reached over and tapped a control on the padd, “And this was picked up near Lamenda. Same ship, same distortion for the same amount of time. Only this time it was just once.”

“The Jeleah shouldn’t have been anywhere near Lamenda.” He glanced at the timestamp in the corner of the screen. “This was only a few hours after Shakaar submitted his resignation. He must be on the Krehu.” He glanced up as though he could see through the ceiling to the stars and the ships in orbit. “They could be up there already.” Then he looked back at Opi, “Get me First Minister Jaro.”

She hesitated. “Actually, the chamber of ministers is in emergency session, discussing the temecklian virus issue regarding that clinic in Joralla Province. They say that some of the ministers want to reexamine their position on Federation aid.”

His expression darkened, but he only said. “Thank you, Opi, dismissed.”


	23. Chapter 23

Cadda pressed her fingers together to slow the bleeding. Besides the pain, the blood made it too slippery to grasp the edge of the panel to pry it open.

This place was an interrogation center if she’d ever seen one. But scarcely manned and barely operational. The lighting was dim even for Cardassian standards, which told her they were on minimal power. The fact that no one was standing watch over her also told her they didn’t have enough people here, maybe only a handful, even. The other two cells that were visible in this long corridor of cells were inoperable and the one she was in looked like it had been patched back together to get it working well enough to pen her in.

She began working on the panel again. The sharp edges cut parallel lines into her fingertips as she worked, but she made some progress, at least.

That’s when the screaming started. A sound that she was sure these walls had been frequently filled with back then, but never should have again. Even worse, the voice was Kee’s.

Cadda kept active in her mind the fantasy of peeling the panel away from the wall to freedom. Otherwise she’d go mad and start pacing again. Or worse, cry out of sheer frustration.

This panel could be a waste of time, but she had no other options. Then, a familiar sound echoed through the corridor: phaser fire. In the dim light, bright flashes accompanied the blasts from one direction down the corridor. Kee’s weakening screams could still be heard from the other way, so it couldn’t be her.

The weapons stopped abruptly with the thud of a body hitting the floor and footsteps approaching. Cadda backed away from the force field and prepared to fight in case the unfriendly side had won. But the face that appeared to her was, by far, the last one she’d expected. It was that human, Riggs, but with Bajoran ridges on his nose.

“Oh, it’s you.” She said in monotone.

“Glad to see you, too.” He said casually as he aimed a phaser at the controls and fired. “And you’re welcome, too. Unless you’d rather keep bleeding on the walls and see if that gets you out of here.” He said, glancing down at her fingers.

She ignored the jab and snatched the phaser out of his hand and started down the corridor as he pulled a second one out from behind him.

“I take it that’s her.” He said, glancing into the air after a bloodcurdling scream.

She nodded. “It’s probably Tahna with her.”

“Should we have a plan? Or just go in there with phasers blazing?”

“Option number two.” She said mater-of-factly. Plans tended to get in the way of improvisation anyway.

They stalked down the corridor cautiously. She hadn’t seen anyone since she woke up in that cell, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out here somewhere, especially after that firefight.

“I’m Riggs, by the way.”

“I know. Cadda.”

“You two been working together long?”

She stole a cross look at him just before they reached an intersection. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just making conversation.” He said lightly then dropped to his knees and fired down the connecting corridor. They were rewarded with an aborted yelp and thud. “Any idea how many there are here?”

“No clue. Couldn’t be many, though.” She said as they approached the fallen guard. Without taking her eyes off of the area ahead, she bent down to retrieve his weapon. “Should be one of those up there.” She gestured to a grouping of doors at the end.

* * *

Tahna’s interrogation method was indistinguishable from a Cardassian’s. Brutal, relentless, cold. If Kee left her eyes closed, she could practically see a Cardassian face instead of a kinsman.

She felt his mouth close to her ear. “The Krehu, how do you contact them?”

It took her several tries before she could find her voice and when she did it was almost unrecognizable as her own. “First, I screw you,” she husked, “then I screw your mother.”

He shoved her face away from him and stood while she prepared for another painful assault.

Instead, a door off to the side slid open with a mechanical sound.

“I said we were not to be disturbed.” He said irritably.

A phaser blast split the air above her in response but missed Tahna as he dove behind the remains of a partially dissected console. Within moments, he was already firing back.

Kee tried to turn her head to see who it was, but searing pain sliced through her head. It felt like her brain was being torn to pieces inside her skull. She couldn’t tell if she’d been hit in the crossfire or if it was Tahna’s torture device.

The pain was so intense, everything else fled from her perception. She was vaguely aware of phaser fire passing back and forth near her and the flashes of light that accompanied it, but it seemed far away compared to the vivid agony within her.

She faintly felt hands on her wrists, loosening the bonds, but she couldn’t bear to open her eyes. It could have been Cadda or someone else rescuing her or it could have been Tahna, taking her away to continue their session. She had no ability to know.

When she was freed, a pair of arms wrapped around her and lifted her out of the chair. Without strength to resist, she stumbled on shaking legs wherever the individual took her.

* * *

Jeff pulled Kee into a side room and leaned her against the wall, still grasping her head like she feared it would burst. He’d seen Tahna activate a control device the moment they started shooting at him, but without the remote, he had no idea how to stop it.

Cadda backed into the room after them and secured the door. “We can’t keep going this way.” She warned.

He scanned her with his tricorder and it informed him that there were nanites throughout her body. Nanites?! Those surrounding her brain were emitting a high frequency interphasic signal disrupting her brain functions and causing intense pain.

A pair of running footsteps charged by outside the door as he thought through how to disable the nanites. An energy burst inverse to the nanites’ operating amplitude might knock them offline.

He scanned her again, adjusted his phaser’s stun setting to the proper frequency and aimed it at her chest.

Cadda saw what he was about to do and shouted, “No!” and lunged for him, but he was able to fire before she made contact.

The next thing he knew, Cadda’s knee was on his throat crushing his wind pipe with her phaser pressed hard enough against his head that it might break the skin. “What did you do?” She demanded.  
He pushed her knee away enough to speak, “I disabled the nanites.”

“The what?” She said, just barely letting up the pressure on the phaser.

“Nanites. They were… it doesn’t matter. She’ll feel better when she wakes up.”

Cadda backed up on her knees toward Kee but kept her phaser trained on him. With her free hand, she felt for a pulse.

Jeff held his breath while she did so, hoping that destroying the nanites hadn’t caused some kind of feedback surge that could have killed her, but after a moment Cadda relaxed and lowered the phaser.

“You could have told me what you were doing.” She said crossly.

“Would you have allowed me to do it?”

He guessed the answer was no, but she didn’t bother to confirm. “I was out cold when they brought us in here. Do you know where we are?”

“It looks like an old Cardassian district just to the north of the capitol.”

“You must mean Koyit. It’s where the Cardassians controlled the occupational government before the station was built.” She thought for a moment. “Not bad. If we can avoid being captured, we can camp out nearby and wait for things to start getting fun.”

“What exactly _is_ your plan?”

“Nothing elaborate. We used what you gave us to nudge the public opinion in a certain direction. When Jaro doesn’t budge, we have some strategically placed politicians call for a recall and emergency election.”

“I assume you have somebody to put up?”

“I sure hope so. But that’s not my department. What Kee and I need to do is be in position if Jaro and his followers don’t go willingly.”

“What if Jaro is reelected by the people?”

“If that’s what the people want, if they truly want someone who will keep us at perpetual war, then that’s what they get. But they deserve to have the choice, even if they make the wrong one.”

“And what about you?” He asked cautiously. “What made you change your mind about the Federation?”

“I haven’t.” She said with a hard voice. “But continuing to make war at the expense of the people is worse than maybe taking a risk with the Federation.”

“Fair enough. So, do you know where we can hide out until all of that goes down?”

“Do I have the layout of the town memorized? No. We’ll just have to figure it out as we go. Now, I assume you know how to get back out of this facility?”

“You’re not going to like it.” He said, bending down to take hold of Kee’s arm and leg to hoist her up onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “It involves waste extraction.”

“Can’t wait.” She said sarcastically as she prepared to head back into the corridor.


	24. Chapter 24

Down in the waste extraction passages, Cadda pressed the sleeve of one arm over her mouth and nose. The stench was so bad it made her eyes water. One of the sewage conduits had ruptured at some point and spilled its contents all along the maintenance passageway.

She sidestepped what looked like a pile of mud, but she was fairly sure it was not, and she wasn’t about to get close enough to know for sure.

“After a decade of disuse, I would have expected the waste to have broken down by now.” Riggs said with a cough. She almost felt bad for him, having to use both hands to carry the still-unconscious Kee, he didn’t have a hand to cover his mouth and nose. But, it was his own fault, he’s the one who had stunned her in the first place.

“Cardassian waste is so toxic, the microorganisms can’t break it down without chemical processing.” Her voice was muffled through her sleeve, but she was not going to take her hand away. “On the bright side, a few more years and it might achieve sentience and you can make first contact.”

A snort-laugh was his response.

They continued the rest of the way in silence. Hopefully the mess and stench would discourage anyone from following them, but she kept her phaser ready in her free hand just in case. She did not want Riggs to have to set Kee down in order to help her with a firefight.

If she forgot about the fact that he’d informed the Cardassians of their attack a few months back, he wasn’t such a bad guy, she supposed. Considerate enough to come in here to help them escape and smart enough not to get himself killed in the process. And he sort-of laughed at her joke, which earned him a few points. But she couldn’t forget about how he’d soled them out, and there was no way she’d be turning her back on him.

“That’s the exit up ahead.” He said when they began to see a sliver of bright light cut through the dim, artificial light down in the passage.

And not a moment too soon, she felt like she was going to pass out from the smell. She slipped carefully through the door to the outside, pausing a moment to allow her eyes to adjust and take a deep breath of the clean air.

Their surroundings were dead silent, even birds stayed away from this place. She led him cautiously through the streets. Tahna would have only trusted his fellow Kohn-ma members to guard them. If she was right about that, they wouldn’t know they were being tracked until it was too late.

She studied each building they passed, looking for somewhere that might have some kind of salvageable equipment and hoping that what she’d heard about Starfleet officers’ abilities was true.

Finally, she came to a label that read “Records Office” in Cardassian characters. There was no power to open the doors, so she pried it open a crack, then slid her fingertips inside and wrestled it open far enough to wedge herself between. With her back against one door and hands and a foot against the other, she slid it far enough for Riggs to get through with Kee. After he passed, she slid the doors back closed with a lot less effort than it had taken to open them.

By the time she had the doors secured, he had set Kee down on the floor with his jacket bundled up under her head.

“Think you can get something working well enough to see what’s going on out there?” She asked.

He didn’t answer immediately, his torso was already half way into the guts of an old console. When he finally pulled himself out, he said, “I think so. Hand me the power cell from the phaser you took off of that guard.”

She didn’t like the idea of giving up her backup weapon, but she handed it over anyway. “You’re not planning to power that thing with the power cell, are you? It’ll blow up right in your face.”

“Not if I can regulate the power flow.” He said with his head back inside the equipment. “The console requires a low level, steady flow, but a phaser’s power cell is designed to produce intense bursts, so I need to slow down and prolong the flow of energy.”

“And you know how to do that?”

“We’ll see in a couple of minutes.” He said with a grunt as he worked at something in there.

Cadda stood protectively between Kee and the door. It shouldn’t be much longer now until she started to stir. With any luck, Tahna’s people would still be searching the interrogation center for them and it would be a while until they expanded out here.

Somehow it didn’t surprise her that she and Tahna ended up on opposite sides. He had rubbed her the wrong way from the start. Way too eager for confrontation. Too scheming. It always seemed like he was only telling half of the truth. But the idea that he would go as far as torture… like some _Cardassian…_

The rising hum of a console powering up pulled her out of her reverie. She waited a moment for indications of an overload but didn’t hear any. She backed up enough so that she could see the screen without turning away from the door. “See if there’s anything new posted to the news feed in the political section.”

He had just input the command when Kee began to awaken. She turned and tried to push herself off of the floor.

“Kee! I-” Cadda started, but Kee stopped her with one outstretched palm and her other pressed hard against her forehead with her face twisted in pain. She must have had a splitting headache from either the nanites or being stunned.

Riggs brushed past her with something in his hand, but Cadda was faster than him this time and grabbed his wrist. “What are you doing?!” She pinched a small vile out of his hand.

“It’s a pain killer.” He said, grabbing it back.

In the little bit that she saw it, she could tell the writing on the label was not Federation. “That’s not Starfleet tech.”

“Don’t tell anybody.” He said with a smirk as he bent down to press the vile to her neck.

Kee immediately relaxed with a weary sigh and pushed herself to a cross-legged position. “What happened?”

“He shot you.” Cadda jumped in before he could reply.

He gave her a what-the-hell look before explaining to Kee, “I modified the stun setting on my phaser to disable the nanites.”

“He shot you.” Cadda said again.

Ignoring the jab, Kee spied the console. “Is that working?”

“For the moment.” Riggs said, helping her to her feet. “We were just getting ready to see what’s happening out there.”

“Tahna was very concerned about where the Krehu is, I’m betting things are about to begin.” Her voice broke a little, still hoarse from before.

The screen displayed the news feed and, sure enough, there was a message from Jaro within the last ten minutes. Cadda tapped it and the recording began.

_“My fellow Bajorans, I address you this morning with grave concern. I refer to recent events involving an alleged cure for the virus plaguing many of our provinces and the rumor that the Federation is responsible. We are currently investigating the accuracy of these reports and are interviewing those healthcare workers involved.”_

Kee’s jaw clenched at that. Her mother had probably been arrested by now.

_“But even more unsettling than the false hope the rumors represent, there are those among us beginning to call for additional Federation involvement._

_“We’ve been free from the Cardassians for only a year and a half. It hardly seems enough time before we invite in a new oppressor. For this reason, I firmly reject the proposal to sell ourselves to the Federation in exchange for some professed friendship._

_“But nonetheless, this issue carelessly released upon us by a group of former military officers has created contention within our community. With that in mind, we have decided to hold an immediate reelection so that you the people can decide for yourselves in the way that you deserve._

_“So, I invite any other candidates to come to the capitol to publicly present themselves to the Bajoran people, right here by my side._

_“Let us leave the ways of our violent past where they belong so that we may come to a peaceful resolution to our differences._

_“Thank you, and may the Prophets bless you.”_

The screen returned to the main feed, “He acts like it was his idea.” Cadda scoffed.

Kee turned to her, “The Krehu must be in orbit by now.”

“Do you think Ren was able to convince Shakaar to run?” She wondered.

“I hope so, because Jaro has a strong hold on the people, even with the temecklian cure. But there’s only one way to find out.” She said, bending over the console to prepare to open an encrypted channel.


	25. Chapter 25

“I strongly recommend against it.” Ren said to Shakaar. He hated to have an argument right here on the bridge, but the man wouldn’t listen to reason.

“I’m not going to hide away up here, addressing the people through a subspace channel. They need to see that I’m present with them.”

“We can’t trust your safety to Jaro and his people. He could be trying to eliminate the competition.”

“I have no doubt about that. But I have to be there in person to show the people that I’m aligned with their interests.”

“You’re going to be a target.”

“That’s for you to worry about. I have a campaign to run.”

“Sir, we’re receiving a message on the exclusive encryption we used to use before the withdrawal.” Veeso cut in. “It must be Kee.”

“On screen.” Ren ordered.

Kee’s face appeared on screen and immediately his internal alert went up. Her hair fell messily around her face, her eyes were bloodshot and there was a deep purple bruise on her face. “Are you alright?” He asked as calmly as he could.

“I’m fine.” She assured him. “Tahna came after us.” Her eyes flicked over his shoulder for an instant to Shakaar. “You’re not going to let him go out in the open down here, are you?”

“We may not have a choice.” He said, resigned to issue. Shakaar did have a point, after all. He’d have a much better chance at winning the election by shaking hands in person.

_“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Jaro’s up to something and he’s got Tahna and the rest of the Kohn-ma backing him.”_

“He needs to be there on the ground with the people. We’ll keep security on him at all times and I want you and Cadda to find out when, where and how they’re planning a strike.” He didn’t bother saying “if”.

She shook her head gently, clearly in pain. _“I’d rather have Cadda head up his security detail. I’ll work on my own to find out what Tahna’s up to.”_ She said, barely blinking at counteracting his order. He didn’t mind, though, he’d trained her to do just that when she had a better plan in mind. For years he’d been confident she could take over running the cell, and later the ship, at a moment’s notice.

“Agreed.”

_“We just need to figure out a way to get from here to the capitol without Tahna and his people spotting us.”_

“Or the part of the militia that’s still loyal to Jaro and Krim. Our entire crew has been labeled traitors.”

“I think I can help with that.” Shakaar spoke up. “The commander of the old space station is a friend of mine, she may be able to beam your people to a safe location in the capital.”

_“That sounds better than a five kelipate hike in open spaces with the Kohn-ma on our tails. Have your associate contact me on this channel when she’s ready.”_

“I will.”

“Just be careful. You know the Kohn-ma.” Ren said.

 _“A little better today.”_ She muttered and cut the channel before he could respond.

Ren turned back to Shakaar, “At least make your announcement to run in the election via subspace. That’ll give us some time before we have to send you down there.”

It was clear that was not what he’d had in mind, but he conceded. “Alright. I’ll send the message right away. But when it’s time for me to beam down, I’m going. With or without your team.”

* * *

Neela knelt in the back of one of many meditation rooms in the monastery. Her pagh felt weighed down by the stirrings in the city lately. Bajorans who had once been united against the Cardassians began to split from each other. Some wishing to hold fast to the course in which their world found themselves, others were beginning to drift toward Federation cooperation and away from the path of isolation and greatness the Prophets had set before them.

Their world had been set aside, segregated by Them away from the other, inferior worlds. The jealousy of the Cardassians toward the Bajorans’ privileged world had left its scars, yet their purpose remained unchanged. But that purpose could never be realized in the presence of outsiders. She prayed for strength to do what would need to be done to ensure that that would not happen.

Just as the last parishioner left the room, Vedek Winn slipped in from behind her and knelt on the pillow next to her. “Have you prepared yourself for your task, child?”

“Yes.” She said reverently without facing her religious superior.

“The influence of the pah-wraiths is beguiling, much like a silver-tonged flatterer that will tell our people that all of their problems will be solved by the Federation. Beware of charismatic deceivers, child.”

“Yes, Vedek.” She said obediently.

“The misguided attempt by Shakaar to take over our world and hand it over to the Federation must be stopped.”

“Yes, Vedek.”

She softened her tone slightly. “He is not necessarily an evil man, but sometimes people who refuse to walk in the path the Prophets have chosen for them and lead others to do the same must be sent home to the Prophets.”

She could only lower her eyes at the implications of what she had been told.

“Do you understand what the Prophets are asking you to do?”

“Yes, Vedek.” She said softly with a lump in her stomach.

“No matter what happens after, the Prophets will reward you for your obedience.” With that, she slipped back out as silently as she’d slipped in.

“Yes, Vedek.” She whispered to the empty room.

* * *

Kee rubbed her eyes to try to get them to focus on the screen. She’d been searching through comm records, transportation manifests, supply requests for something that seemed out of the ordinary. Anything to give them any clue what Jaro’s plan was. And there was no doubt in her mind that he did have a plan to get rid of the competition.

Shakaar’s contact had put them down in a part of town that the Cardassians had virtually leveled on the day of the Withdrawal and it still hadn’t been cleaned up. Few people ventured out here unless it was to scavenge the ruins. They managed to find a partially intact building and set up the console they’d brought with them from their previous hideout.

She leaned back in a dust-smelling chair that she’d found. “Ugh! There’s nothing here! They know better than to have left any trace for us to find.”

“You never know where somebody will slip up. Cadda’s doing what she can to secure the candidate and until we have more information to give her, we have to keep at it.” Riggs said from another console he’d managed to run off of the power cell like before.

“I know. I just hate being stuck here doing nothing. Cadda’s out there somewhere in the capital, completely blind. I want to give her an idea of what she’s looking for and get out there myself and _do_ something!”

“Hey, this is almost all I did for over a year while I was tracking you guys.”

She felt a smirk tug at the corner of her lips, “You had to do a lot of research to track us?”

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself.” He pointed a finger at her with a smile of his own.

She smiled wider and stood to stretch her back and walked over to a grimy window that was barely transparent anymore. She glanced out and over toward the north-east, toward her home province. The evergreen trees in the forests would be putting out their cones by this time of year. A pang of homesickness jabbed her insides with a sigh.

Finally, she made her way back to her chair and sat down with her head in her hands. “I’m tired.” She confided.

“After what you just went through, I’m sure-”

“No, not just today. I’m _tired_.” She raised her head but didn’t look at him. “I’m tired of having to fight every moment of every day. I barely even remember what it was like before I started fighting the Cardassians, and even before that, just basic survival was a struggle.

“There was a time a few years ago when I was ready to give up.” The memory of Ilwea’s torture still felt like a gut punch. “I just couldn’t do it any more, I could have walked away from all of it right then and there.”

She let that hang in the air for a moment and he didn’t say anything. “It’s hard to believe there was a time when life was easy on our planet. Where people worked and raised their families… just lived their lives. Food and medicine were available when they needed it. They had homes that were safe and warm. The way things are going, I don’t know if we’ll ever see a time like that again.”

“That’s why we’re doing this.” He reminded her gently. “To make sure that does happen.”

She scoffed. “Even if we’re successful now, the other factions aren’t just going to go away. They’ll go underground, bide their time and wait for the right moment to grab control of Bajor again.”

“The work doesn’t stop at the election. People’s minds have to be changed, opened to peace and progress.”

He said it with such conviction, and almost reverence, she had to roll her eyes. “Wow, you’re so Starfleet.”

“Sorry, I’ll try to be less optimistic.”

A sound outside on the street interrupted their little chat. They listened in the silence. The almost imperceptible sound of rubble being moved and pushed aside.

The sound grew closer and the two dropped down behind the double console they’d been working at. Cadda, of course, had taken her phaser with her and left Kee with the second phaser.  
Unfortunately, the power cell was the one currently running the console. Kee edged around the console just enough to be able to see the door while she could hear Riggs disconnect the power sell.

Without taking her eyes off of the door, she held out her hand for him to give her the power cell and she slid it in place in her phaser. “Some of that optimism wouldn’t be so bad right now.”

“Well, let’s see… ‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened’… ‘Those who wish to sing, always find a song’… ‘Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.’”

“Okay, okay, stop. We’ll see if we can find the gift in this problem. You said this place has two other exits, correct?”

“I’ll check and see if one of them is clear.” He said and backed away through a doorway into a dark room.

Kee concentrated on the noses outside, trying to determine whether they were getting closer or farther away. Could they have picked up the power signature from the rigged-up consoles? She dismissed the idea, the power level was way below the threshold they could detect. Or maybe they had tracked the transporter signature once they realized they weren’t in Koyit anymore.

The tiny hairs on the back of her neck began to creep and she became aware of someone else in the room. Just as she prepared to swing around to face them, she heard his voice.

 

“Hold it right there.” Tahna said. “Hands up.”

She held the phaser loosely in the crook of her thumb and finger and raised her hands. She could just see him over her shoulder in her peripheral vision and he wisely stayed beyond arm’s reach. There were a dozen ways she knew to grab a phaser out of someone’s hand before they could fire, but all of them depended on being within reach.

“Converge on my location.” He said into a communicator, then to her, “Where are the others?”

“They went to the capital to stop whatever you’re planning.” She half lied. She had to buy herself some time. With a phaser pointed at her, she wasn’t sure if Riggs would be willing to-

Her thought was cut off by the sound of a phaser. She spun part way around to see that he’d hit Tahna’s hand. She lashed out to grab his wrist just past the fresh phaser burn and jerked him towards her while raising her elbow to smash into his face. She turned the rest of the way around and drove her knee into his stomach.

He reached to grab for her, but she slammed the side of his head into the console to knock him out.

With a quick jerk of his phaser, Riggs beckoned her and together they rushed through a hallway and out a rear door. They found themselves on the broken and ruined street, unsure which direction to go, so she arbitrarily chose the direction to their right and they dashed off that way with their pursuers right behind.


	26. Chapter 26

“Are you sure about that?” Ren asked Ches, one of their old informants who had joined the engineering corps down in the capital. “It could be just a coincidence.”

_“One coincidence, maybe, but three? First the supervisor’s interlock tool goes missing. The only function for that particular tool involves panels securing sensitive systems. Such as the ones that run the security system for the Ministers’ Courtyard which happened to have an unlogged access last night.”_

“But you didn’t find anything wrong?”

_“No, but, then, I’m a basic tech, not a coder. I’d be willing to accept that the unlogged access had been an error and the tool is just lost, but there was also the after-hours entry at the Infrastructure and Transportation office. They’re the only ones in the area with a working transporter pad. I think someone is planning an escape.”_

Ren mulled it over. It could be nothing, or it could be exactly what they’re looking for. He couldn’t ignore it, but if he sent Kee off on a bogus errand, it would take her away from pursuing the real plot. It also didn’t tell them much other than an engineering officer was likely involved. “Are you sure about this? We can’t afford to expend manpower on something that doesn’t pan out.”

_“I have a bad feeling about it, that’s all I can say.”_

“Alright, thank you for the information.” He said and closed the channel as he studied the blurry image Ches had sent them from the Infrastructure and Transportation office security feed. She was turned away from the camera so that all they could tell was that she wore a gray engineer’s uniform.

Shakaar was planning to beam down to the planet any time now, as soon as Alerra and Joial were ready for some fancy transporter work involving tying their transporter into the space station’s so they could beam him down without having to decloak. Ren would have been a lot more comfortable if their timetable wasn’t so tight.

* * *

Kee ran at a full sprint down the street and around the corner, impressed that a Human could keep up. Two more corners and she had hoped they’d lost them, but a phaser blast narrowly missing her head told her otherwise.

That’s the moment her comm activated. _“Krehu to Kee.”_ Ren’s voice came across.

Still zigzagging through the streets and clamoring over rubble, she lifted it close to her mouth. “A little busy at the moment.” She breathed. “Stand by.”

Finally, they were far enough ahead to duck down a narrow alley and behind the remains of burned and melted shipping containers. They sunk down to the ground with their backs against the crates and breathed as evenly and quietly as they could, ultimately holding their breath while their pursuers ran by.

She tapped a control on her comm to lower the volume down to almost nothing, “Go ahead.” She whispered.

 _“We have something for you.”_ Ren said, not seeming at all surprised that she’d been either chasing or being chased a moment before. _“You may be looking for a woman in an engineer’s uniform.”_

“That doesn’t narrow it down much.” She complained.

_“It’s all I can give you. She may have sabotaged the security systems in the area where Jaro and Shakaar will appear to the public as well as set up an escape plan.”_

“He needs to cancel the appearance, just to be safe.”

_“He won’t.”_

Kee leaned her head back against the crate.

_“I’ve already informed Cadda, but like you said, it doesn’t give her much to go on. There could be several hundred female engineers posted in the capital.”_

“If I can manage to get past Tahna and his people, I’ll see what I can do to help.”

_“Good luck, we’ll keep an eye out from here.”_

When the comm unit indicated the channel was closed, Riggs said, “A few blocks back I saw an entrance to an underground transportation system. Do you know if it runs between here and the functional part of the capital?”

“It’s possible. The Cardassians often used underground passages during the winters.” She said and began edging out of their hiding place.


	27. Chapter 27

As the swirl of the transporter expanded before Cadda, so also did the sense of dread. By bringing Shakaar to the surface they were committing themselves to essentially a game of chance. As long as Jaro wanted to keep up the pretense of adhering to the law, she was certain he would not make a move against her or her crewmates as they appeared in public alongside Shakaar. But if Jaro won, she had no doubt they’d be arrested immediately and charged with treason. Possibly executed.

Four figures materialized, Shakaar, Naren, Sevi and Aton.

Beyond their own fate, the future of Bajor rested on Shakaar’s shoulders… his broad, broad shoulders, she thought, trying to hide the lustful smirk as she appreciated his form.

“I’m Lieutenant Cadda.” She introduced herself.

“I understand I’ll be in your capable hands for the next few days.” He said smoothly with a smile that sent a surge through her body.

There were several things that immediately came to mind that she could do with him in her hands. She tamped the feeling down, she could not afford to get distracted. “Jaro is expecting you in the Ministers’ Courtyard any time.”

“Can’t wait.” He said with a reluctant smile and she ushered him down the path she’d scouted out earlier. She only hoped Kee would be able to give her a heads-up before it was too late.

* * *

“A bomb would be too sloppy.” Kee said mostly to herself. “Jaro will be on the platform, and they won’t want to risk catching him in the blast.”

They’d finally slowed their pace to a fast walk as they neared the end of the last tunnel exit before the security checkpoints began. “Unless Jaro’s the type to let himself get injured in order to avoid suspicion.” Riggs said.

“I doubt it, not in such an uncontrolled way. A knife would require extreme accuracy unless they’re at close range.” They still didn’t know what they were even looking for and time was running out.

“That leaves an energy weapon. Something small that could be concealed. Unless we’re facing a long-range sniper situation.”

“If that’s the case, we’re out of luck.” She said. “We just don’t have the manpower to search that wide of an area. Besides, it looks like the security systems in the Ministers’ Courtyard were sabotaged, so it’s most likely going to come from within.”

They started up the old stairwell to the surface street. Before they reached the busy walkway above them, she stopped him with the back of her hand to his chest. There was something she had to know. “Why are you doing this?” It was a question she’d been wondering since she first saw him here on her home world.

He stood for a moment with one foot still on the next step up, genuinely baffled by the question, “Because justice and law matter.”

“But this isn’t your fight.”

He hesitated before saying more, “It is for right now.” He began climbing again. “Besides, you asked me for help.”

She started up the steps, hurrying to stay even with him. “I asked you for a vaccine.”

“I believe your first words were ‘I need your help.’”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he had her there, so she changed the subject back to the task at hand, lowering her voice as they joined the pedestrians walking in the direction of the seat of government. “We don’t know who we’re looking for, when it will happen and we only have a vague idea of the most likely weapon.”

“Sounds like a gut instinct kind of job to me.”

She stole a brief sidewise glance at him, she’d always assumed Starfleet officer to be a rigid, inflexible bunch, incapable of working on the fly or by purely gut instinct. “I’ll make my way through the crowd and watch for anything suspicious.”

“I’ll check the perimeter and take some scans. If it’s an energy weapon, the assassin probably has it concealed from sensors somehow, but you never know.”

* * *

“Any progress?” Ren asked as he walked into engineering.

Joial had the computer analyzing every conceivable identification attribute possible from the security video Ches had sent them from the Infrastructure and Transportation office. Height, weight, build, gait, all fed into the search parameters.

“It’s… working. I don’t know if it will find anything in time to do us any good.”

He watched Ren pace across the room once and back much more calmly than he must have felt. Failure in this case meant the death of one of the heroes of the Resistance, and their only hope of defeating Jaro in a peaceful, legal way. No one favored the prospect of civil war, but it could be their only hope if today went badly.

“Okay. Contact Kee and Cadda directly as soon as you have anything, inform me after.” He said with pretended nonchalance as he ambled back out the door.

Joial went back to watching the computer’s progress. The numbers flicked by too fast to track. The numbers… Cardassian identification numbers for Bajoran citizens. He’d decided to tap into the Cardassian database for the search because it would be far more complete than any of their own records.

Staring at the screen was beginning to give him a headache and he leaned back to rub his eyes. There was no reason he had to sit here and watch it work, but somehow it didn’t feel right to do anything else right now. As if walking away would make it miss what he was looking for.

He’d just refocused his attention on the screen when the numbers suddenly stopped and a record opened up: Neela. He immediately opened a secure channel to Kee.


	28. Chapter 28

Neela had arrived at the Ministers’ Courtyard when there was only a small crowd, but over the last half hour, people had packed in so much that they were shoulder to shoulder.

First Minister Jaro and Vedek Winn were already on the podium. She swallowed hard and gripped the case in her hand tightly with shaking hands. How could she kill the man who had led the liberation of Gallitep? But how could she disobey her Vedek and the Prophets?

 _The Prophets spoke. I must answer their call._ She reminded herself again and again like a mantra.

* * *

Kee pushed slowly through the crowd. All other bodies were turned toward the platform where Jaro stood with his security escort and Vedek Winn of all people. But Kee mostly ignored the scene and concentrated on searching for anyone out of place. She kept watch on women in engineering uniforms, but Neela could have had an accomplice, so she scrutinized everyone in her path. The potential assassin could be any one of them using any weapon imaginable, there was little chance they’d spot them in time.

The crowd suddenly pressed tighter and the hushed murmur from before became a noisy mixture of expectant excitement, shouted questions demanding answers and uncertain rumblings as Shakaar and his security team took the stage next to Jaro. With the surge, she had to push harder to make her way through.

As she continued to jostle her way, studying each face for the look of a potential murderer, a movement caught the corner of her eye. Up on the stage, Winn’s hand brushed intimately against Jaro’s hand. She brushed it off, it wasn’t any of her business who a Vedek or a politician had a relationship with, but the movement had drawn her attention nonetheless. A glance up at Winn’s face and she could see the Vedek had made sharp eye contact with someone in the crowd.

Kee’s eyes followed the Vedek’s to a stone-faced woman in a gray engineer’s uniform who’s focus turned from Winn to Shakaar. It was Neela. Kee rushed forward, shoving and moving people out of her way, but the woman was already reaching for something inside of a case in her hand.

* * *

The crowd surged forward toward them, drawing an equal surge of alarm within Cadda. She tried to step between Shakaar and the crowd, but he wouldn’t allow it, only smiling and waving to them, encouraging them.

With one hand on her phaser, she surveyed the upturned faces. Most of them wore expressions of excitement, some of uncertainty and others of distrust, but she couldn’t yet spot anyone who stuck out as anything other than what they appeared. The advantage of her higher vantage point was offset by the between her and the assassin. She continued to visually scan both the crowd and surrounding area for the woman in the picture Joial had sent or anyone else who didn’t look right.

Cadda spotted Kee just in time to see her head snap to the side. She followed her gaze to see the one they were looking for focused intently in Shakaar’s direction, reaching inside of an engineering tool case. Kee was already in motion, but she could see she wasn’t going to make through the sea of people it in time. Cadda stepped to the edge of the platform and leapt off, shouting, “Get down!”

* * *

Jeff had completed his second pass of the perimeter of the courtyard without picking anything up on his scanner. If there was a weapon here, the assassin had it shielded.

“What are you doing here?” A gruff voice demanded from behind him.

Jeff turned around into the chest of a large security officer. “I, ah, was trying to get a better view of the candidate.” He said as convincingly as he could, but he was certainly not in an ideal vantage point, so doubted the security officer would believe him.

He was about to find out his credibility when a commotion on-stage drew their attention. He looked just in time to see Cadda leap off onto the crowd. One of her security team followed with more caution while the other two immediately surrounded Shakaar and rushed him off of the stage.

The confusion gave him a chance to break away from the security officer. He pulled his phaser as he hurried forward to cover any accomplices the assassin might have, hoping he wouldn’t be stopped by security again.

A moment after Cadda had yelled for them to get down, the people in the crowd dropped to the ground, finally giving both women a free path. 

Jeff saw no accomplice moving to assist the woman in the gray uniform, so he sidestepped to cover the perimeter with his phaser.

Kee threw herself towards the woman, tackling her to the ground, but she was able to jerk free to aim at the still-retreating Shakaar. Cadda arrived second and narrowly missed being caught by a phaser blast that went wide in the struggle. She pinned the woman’s arm to the ground with her full weight and wrenched the phaser out of her hand.

Security guards surrounded the three women with their weapons drawn and Jeff suddenly experienced what felt like a type-15 shuttlecraft slam into his back, knocking him down.

“Drop the weapon, hands on your head!” The security officer from before demanded.

The weight compressing his chest and the phaser pressed into the back of his neck compelled him to comply. From his prone position, he could see Kee and Cadda on their knees, also having been disarmed at gunpoint, but the would-be-assassin was still pinned down and struggling. Shouting, “The Prophets spoke! I answered their call!”

He felt restraints wrapped around his wrists but didn’t fight it. He knew what it looked like, him running around here with a phaser during an assassination attempt. He’d be better off cooperating. Assuming Kee didn’t decide to leave him in custody after it was all over.


	29. Chapter 29

Jeff had been in a holding cell for nearly a week since the assassination attempt. They’d been unable to connect him to Neela because he didn’t really exist. Not on this world anyway. Much longer and they’d be sure to figure that out. But for now, he laid back on his bunk tossing a ball into the air and catching it. One of the security officers had had sympathy for his utter boredom and gave him a ball from some game he’d called spring ball.

The election must have been getting close, but no one would give him any news. So, he sat and stood and laid down with the ball as his only source of amusement.

Just as he caught the ball for the ninety-fourth time in a row without dropping it, the outer door opened. He turned to see Kee saunter in coolly. He returned her manner and continued tossing the ball.

“You’re getting back at me because of what I did on Cardassia?” He asked, already knowing the answer.

“Seemed fitting.”

“But you know, I kind’a like it here. No missions, no chasing down the bad guys…”

“Do you want out or not?”

He kept tossing the ball above him, “Nah, I thought I’d stay in here until they figure out who I really am and cause some trouble for you.”

She reached over to lower the forcefield, “I thought you might want to get out in time for the election results to be announced.” She said, dropping the playfulness.

“Actually, I really would.” He finally got up and joined her on the way out of the holding area. “Shouldn’t you be on your way back to Nivoch before too long?”

“How do you know about that?” She snapped as they left the security office with hardly a glance from the officers there.

“I’m a spy. I hear things.” He shrugged. Actually, the crew of the Ta’So were eager to tell anybody about their upcoming gik’tal against one who had wronged them dishonorably. It didn’t take much to put the two together. “You’re really going to go through with it?”

“It’s that or they continue to hunt down my crew.”

They walked a short distance to a comm hub where they could watch the news feed with a group of other Bajorans. “Would you like some company on your errand?”

She turned to him thoughtfully and finally said, “You know, I would.”

“I’ll be there.”

The comm unit blinked on to show an empty podium with the Ministers’ Courtyard in the background. A moment later a male Vedek stepped up, drawing excited whispers from the group around him.

“That’s Vedek Bareil.” Kee whispered. “They say he’ll most likely be the next Kai after Opaka.”

_“My brothers and sisters, what a privilege it is to finally have the freedom to elect our own leaders. Regardless of the outcome, we can take comfort that we are guided by the hands of the Prophets as we exercise that right.”_

He paused to consult a padd in front of him. _“The people of Bajor, in a free election, have chosen Shakaar Edon to be the First Minister.”_

The crowd both at the live location and there surrounding Jeff responded with equal and opposite reactions of joy and disappointment, it had to have been a close race. That didn’t bode well for future unity, but that was a matter for another day. He glanced to the side to offer his congratulations, but Kee had already slipped away.

* * *

Kee paced the room barefoot. She’d selected a hotel on Nivoch near the Klingon embassy. It hadn’t been easy to slip away from her crewmates, but there was no way Ren would allow this to happen if he knew. And rightly he shouldn’t. This was crazy, she didn’t know the first thing about fighting with a bat’leth.

By this time tomorrow, she’d probably be dead. And even if through some kind of intervention by the Prophets she won, she’d have to kill her opponent. She’d never thought twice about killing Cardassians to protect her home, but to kill a Klingon warrior in what, to them, amounted to a game had her stomach twisted into a knot.

She could only hope she could find some alternative to killing or being killed. She couldn’t forfeit without breaking their agreement, and she knew enough about Klingons to know that if she won and spared her opponent’s life, his dishonor would be worse than death.

The door chime interrupted her reverie, “Come.”

Some irrational part of her hoped it was one of the Klingons there to say the match was off, but she still wasn’t disappointed when it was Riggs who appeared in the doorway. He took a step inside and glanced around. “No Cadda?”

“I needed her to run interference for me back home. I’m surprised it took you a day longer to get here than it did me with all the sneaking around I had to do.”

“I, ah, stopped for some advice.” He stepped tentatively toward her. “There may be a way to get out of this without anybody dying.”

“Let’s hear it?” She said hopefully.

“It’s not easy, and you could still get killed or badly injured.”

“Okay…”

“And I suppose you don’t care much about Klingon honor.”

“I care about the safety of my crew and my people. Klingon honor means nothing to me.”

“It’s called ‘ _batlh jegh_ ’ which means something along the lines of ‘yield my honor’. You would be accepting a dishonorable defeat while the opponent’s honor would be satisfied.”

“That doesn’t sound bad at all.”

“That’s not all. In order to offer _batlh jegh_ , you have to have received at least two wounds during the fight. And not superficial ones. If it’s on an extremity, it has to go deep enough to cut into the muscle, or on the abdomen deep enough to draw a gush of blood or chip a piece of bone.”

“That’s specific.” She said as the knot in her stomach returned.

“They take these things pretty seriously. Probably wasn’t the best idea to steal something from them in the first place.”

“It worked didn’t it.” She waved it off. “Besides, it’s better than taking a cloak from the Romulans. How do you know all of this _batlh jegh_ stuff anyway? Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing they’d be very open about.”

“I have a contact at the Office of Requisitions.” He said, then quickly changed the subject. “You’ll need to get familiar enough with the bat’leth in order to make sure those two wounds don’t end up fatal. Did they give you one?”

“It’s over there.” She motioned to the bat’leth sitting on the corner of the bed. They’d been decidedly unimpressed when she didn’t own one and had provided one along with plenty of disdain.

“Okay. So, let me see your stance.”

She sighed and picked up the bat’leth, holding it with a wide stance and the blade facing up and out with both hands. She had plenty of experience with hand-to-hand combat, with balance and movement and center of gravity, but this felt awkward.

Riggs walked around her slowly. She wondered how much he really knew about Klingon weapons and how much, like her, he knew just from what he’d seen on holos. He continued his circuit and she felt him step up right behind her.

His hands wrapped around hers, prompting her to loosen her hold as he adjusted her grip. Then he slid his hands down to her wrists to gently correct their positioning. All the while, his breath grazed against her neck, sending chills across her shoulders.

Once he had her arms positioned properly, he rested his hands on her hips to align her stance. Despite the distracting thoughts that began to creep through her mind, she felt a noticeable improvement to the distribution of her weight in relation to the bat’leth.

“First you need to feel how the bat’leth flows through your hands.” He said, beginning to guide her movements, passing the weapon smoothly back and forth between her hands in a continuous twisting circular motion.

“Feel how it balances in your hand as it moves? Almost like it’s moving on its own.” He said and she nodded. “Now, change the pattern into a larger arc using the full length of your arm.” He allowed her to control the movement this time.

“Good.” He said. “Now turn it so that it’s cradled along the inside of your arm.”

The pose was awkward at first, but as soon as it was in position, she could feel it as though it was an extension of her own body.

Then he moved on to show her defensive postures, deflections, offensive thrusts and sweeps. After an hour or so of repeating the positions again and again, he said. “Think you’re ready for a match?”

“Do you have a bat’leth hidden back there somewhere?” She made a show of looking behind him.

He tapped his communicator with a smirk, “Computer, energize.”

A bat’leth materialized at his feet a centimeter above the floor and dropped with a sharp clang. He picked it up and stood ready, facing her. After giving her a moment to prepare, he swung the weapon in a slow, wide overhead arc.

She lifted her bat’leth to block. Easy enough. But his next strike wasn’t so easy. He swung in from the side, forcing her to shift and block from the side.

He attacked again and again, each one faster and more challenging and she found herself automatically using the defensive positions he’d taught her. She backed up a few steps to give herself room, but he stepped forward to close the gap, keeping the pressure on.

The only sound in the room other than their strained vocalizations was the clang of the blades. As the intensity of their match grew, beads of sweat began to plaster his dark hair to his forehead, and she felt her own trickle of sweat run down the side of her face.

She began to find herself backed into the corner of the room, so she selected an attack move.

Surprised, he deflected and shifted to his back foot to give himself space and she took the opportunity to deliver another blow, stopping just short of grazing his shoulder.

At that, he stepped back and she slipped around to the side to circle each other. She watched his eyes for cues, not his bat’leth, his deep brown, thoughtful eyes. She snapped herself out of the distraction in time to pick up the subtle change as he made the decision to attack again, so she made a move first.

As he raised his blade, she swung up and knocked it to the side but he didn’t lose his grip. She followed through by slamming her shoulder into his chest, knocking him back.

“That’s not a standard bat’leth move.” He complained as he sidestepped in the opposite direction from her.

“Is it against the rules?”

“No.”

“Then I’m keeping it.” She said with a grunt as she sliced her blade through the air horizontally.

He jumped back to avoid it and returned with his own maneuver. They traded back and forth offense and defense, defense and offense until she caught a smile creep onto his lips and found herself returning it.

By then, she wasn’t sure if her heart was pounding from exertion or desire, but her competitive nature wouldn’t allow her to back down to find out. She held the bat’leth with one hand in the center grip and deflected a blow to the side. The curve of the blades caught and they locked in place, both straining against each other’s strength.

With her other hand, she took a swing, intending to strike him just hard enough for a distraction, but he caught her wrist and held her arm steady, their faces centimeters apart, his breath sweeping across her face, cooling her sweat-damp skin.

Her eyes fell to his lips, still curled into a smile. They held the position for several breaths, unable or unwilling to break away. When she didn’t think she could stand it anymore he closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to hers.

The touch of his lips on hers sent a thrill through her body and she vaguely heard the two weapons clang to the floor.


	30. Chapter 30

Kee stepped forward in the noisy tournament hall with her bat’leth resting along the inside of her elbow and Riggs at her side. The chamber was filled with Klingons cheering, but not for her. The group in front of her parted to make a path to an empty ring in the center. Nearly every one of them was more than a full head taller than her.

She swallowed hard to try to wet her dry mouth, but it didn’t do any good. If she didn’t make it, at least her crew would be safe. Ren would be safe. That was her one comfort.

“Just follow your natural sense of survival, you’ll be fine.” Riggs said in her ear. He had to almost shout to be heard over the noise of so many Klingons.

“My natural sense of survival told me not to come here at all. I usually ignore it.” She took a breath and let it out slowly as she stepped into the ring.

The Klingon that stood on the opposite end, Captain Kogh, towered over her with a thick, broad frame. His wild hair and armored uniform served to accentuate his size.

 _It’s alright._ She told herself. _I’ve gone up against bigger, stronger enemies lots of times._ But never a Klingon. He would have the advantage of altitude and gravity, but she had the advantage of speed and agility. She hoped it would be enough.

“Is my challenge to be met by a little girl?” He mocked and the crowd responded with increased volume.

The last thing she should do was make this any harder on herself, but she couldn’t help but taunt back, “Are you referring to the _little girl_ that stole your cloaking device right off of your own ship?”

The crowd responded noisily.

“Your blood will adorn my blade.” He said with a sneer.

Of that she had no doubt.

An intercessor stepped forward at the edge of the ring, roughly central between them. “vut” he called gruffly for them to prepare. “lIH!” _Begin_.

Kogh rolled the bat’leth from hand to hand several times before lunging toward her with a downward strike. She automatically raised her weapon. When they clanged together, she felt power behind the blow that almost made her knees buckle.

She stepped quickly to the side to avoid his next swing, tipping her bat’leth vertically to protect her legs. That strike reverberated through the metal and almost knocked her off her feet. Any possibility that she might win disappeared. Her only chance to make it through this alive would be the _batlh jegh_.

She took a few steps back, but he was right on top of her with another downward swing. She blocked and deflected it to the side this time, but he was unphased. His eyes drilled into her as though they could paralyze her.

She had to allow him to wound her twice, but his every attack had the goal of lethality. Another sideways swing, she moved to block, but only managed to divert the blade downward. The longer of the twin blades raked down her left thigh. She gritted her teeth against the pain.

She staggered back while he took a moment to gloat the beginning of his victory. A brief glance at her leg and the blood soaking into her pants told her it was deep. But she had only a moment’s respite before the attack began again.

* * *

“Damn it, Cadda!” Ren shouted as the two of them pushed through the crowd at the Klingon embassy at Nivoch. If she’d come clean about Kee’s whereabouts sooner, he could have stopped this absurd match.

He had to push and elbow his way between the spectators, but when they saw that he was of the same race as one of the combatants, most of them allowed him through.

When he reached the front, his heart could have stopped. Kee, locked in a vicious battle against a huge Klingon, with an obvious limp and blood streaming down her leg. Every swing of his bat’leth could be the last, but she met each one.

Despite her injury, strike after strike metal clanged against metal instead of sinking into flesh. For a moment he forgot about the danger and a feeling of pride washed over him. To see her using the skills he taught her so long ago in addition to those she’d developed herself. And the bat’leth, this alien weapon, danced through her fingers with a delicate power.

“When did she learn to use a bat’leth?” He asked Cadda, but she only shrugged.

Then, just when it seemed she might survive this, the Klingon sliced the weapon through the air at hip height. Kee moved to block, but too late, the blade dug into her side. She held it back with her bat’leth, straining to keep it from sinking deeper even though he pressed hard.

It wasn’t a fatal blow, but a gut injury like that in a fight against a Klingon was a death sentence. With one desperate push, she drove the blade away from herself and collapsed to her knees.  
The Klingon raised his weapon for a final blow.

For an instant, Ren saw the little girl she once was and desperately wanted to reach in and pluck her from danger.

Kee raised her bat’leth blade side down with both hands open and palms facing up. “batlh jegh jIH” She said loudly with pain in her voice.

Her opponent froze in place and she continued. “jagh matay'DI'. jegh jIH neH quvHa'ghach.”

He slowly lowered the bloody weapon to her shoulder so that the u-shaped blade surrounded her neck on three sides.

She held perfectly still despite the pain.

“Do you yield in dishonor rather than die with honor?”

“Yes.” She said simply.

With that he snatched the bat’leth roughly out of her hands and threw it across the ring to land with a loud clang that rang through the jeering crowd. Then he turned his back to her, sneering, and marched away without another word.

Supporting herself with one hand on the ground and the other pressed against the bleeding wound on her left side, Kee ignored the curses hurled at her from the spectators.

Before Ren could get to her, someone else, not Klingon rushed to her side. When the man turned his face, he recognized him. It was that Human who had warned the Cardassians of their attack.

Ren started toward the pair, but Cadda grabbed his arm. “It’s okay. He’s with us now… or we’re with him, maybe. I don’t know.”

Ren gave her a sternly questioning look. He didn’t like his people keeping secrets from him and it seemed there had been some big ones lately.

“I’ll let Kee explain it to you.” She said simply.

It seemed he’d have to accept that for now and he continued toward them more calmly this time. As he approached, he heard the Human say to her as he helped her to her feet. “I appreciate you getting all of your wounds on one side, now I won’t get blood all over me.”

She peered up at him with an amused smirk and wiped her bloody left hand on the front of his shirt with a snicker that disappeared when she saw Ren approaching.

His eyes met hers and as angry as he’d been with her, all he felt was relief. She slid her arm off of the other man’s shoulder and wrapped it around Ren’s neck in a strong embrace that lasted long enough to communicate what each of them were feeling.

Finally, the blood soaking into the front of his uniform caused him to pull back enough to look into her face. “You could have been killed.” He said more harshly than he’d intended.

“But you wouldn’t have.” Was her only explanation.

He couldn’t manage to say more, only, “We need to get you back to the ship.”

She nodded and turned to where the Human had been but found that he’d already slipped away into the crowd.

* * *

Kee hurried out of sickbay the moment their medic had released her, which was only after a lengthy scolding about risk-taking. She quickly walked the short distance to the transporter room and found Alerra at the console running diagnostics.

“I need to beam down to these coordinates.” She said, tapping in a set of coordinates Riggs had sent her in a coded transmission an hour earlier.

Ren had been unhappy, to say the least, about her behavior over the last month, but she’d come clean about it, every bit. For the second time in her life, she’d broken his trust and that hurt would last much longer than the injuries she’d sustained in the match with the Klingon. She only hoped she could earn it back.

Alerra wore an apprehensive expression as Kee stepped onto the transporter pad, but she didn’t voice her uncertainty.

“I’ll be right back. I just have to wrap something up.” She assured her. The Krehu was set to leave the system shortly and if she wasn’t back before then, Alerra would have to report in that she’d left. Kee did not intend to be gone long enough for that to happen.

“Energizing.” She said, still reluctant.

The room disappeared into the transporter effect and changed over to a dark alleyway on the surface. At first it seemed like she was alone and she’d missed him, but as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see his form leaning against the wall.

She stepped toward him directly into an urgent kiss. When he’d left her after the match, she was worried she wouldn’t get to say good bye. Then she received his message to meet here in private.

His hands slipped around her waist and he held her tight against him as her lips melted into his. He pressed her against the wall with one leg between hers and she nestled her body against his.

When their lips finally parted she peered up at him, “Thank you for what you’ve done.”

He didn’t say anything, only kissed her again, gently, longingly, then rested his forehead against hers. “See you around.” He said, and slipped away into the darkness, leaving her staring after him, breathing heavily, craving more of his touch. But all she could do was smile to herself at the thought of encountering him again.

She tapped her combadge and called for beam-out. When she materialized back on the Krehu, she said to Alerra teasingly, “See?”

Alerra only smiled, things were finally going to get back to normal… whatever ‘normal’ was going to be from now on.

Kee walked the short distance to the bridge and took up her position at tactical.

Ren glanced back, “The bridge didn’t quite look right without you there.” Then he turned to Gam at the helm, “Take us to the Kalandan system, best speed.”

“Yes, sir.” Gam said. They had been ordered by General Lenaris to meet the Federation relief convoy en route to Bajor. The new First Minister had hammered out a quick agreement with them for emergency aid and assistance administering the old space station that had nearly been abandoned by the militia during the campaign against Cardassia. The Major who had been in charge of the station all this time would not be happy about that, but time would tell whether or not it was a mistake.

“Have we received communication regarding the Starfleet contingent for the old station?” She asked.

“Ah, somebody named Sisko is expected to head up the Starfleet team.” Ren said off hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, once again I had planned on this being the last part of my Terrorists Don't Get to be Heroes series, but as usual, I have another inkling of a plot in mind. Thanks for reading, and I'll probably post another installment sometime soon, but it'll definitely be back in the Prime universe.


End file.
